Lehigh Valley Public Media cuts nearly half of staff

Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, Pa., laid off 16 employees Friday.

The organization is left with 24 employees after cutting workers across all departments, CEO Hasanna Birdsong told Current through emails from a spokesperson. Eight of the employees who were laid off were in the broadcaster’s Lehigh Valley News newsroom.

Like other public broadcasters, LVPM is facing a financial shortfall following last year’s rescission of federal funding for public media. According to its fiscal year 2024 financial statement, the organization received a CPB Community Service Grant of about $1.2 million that year, accounting for about 24% of its revenue.

Birdsong told Lehigh Valley News that the federal cuts were not the key factor prompting the layoffs. LVPM’s current business model is “not sustainable,” she said.

“If we waited, it would make future decisions more painful and limit our options,” Birdsong said.

LVPM’s total expenses in FY24 were $13.5 million, according to its financial statement, while total revenue and support amounted to $4.9 million. Birdsong, who became CEO in June, told Lehigh Valley News that the nonprofit has lost more than $1.8 million in FY26.

LVPM dropped the World and Create broadcast channels carried by public TV station PBS39 Jan. 1, according to a programming update. “This was a difficult decision, and several factors were involved, but the largest is funding,” the update said. “These channels represent more than $400,000 in annual programming costs, and reducing that expense is a key part of ensuring we can continue investing in high-quality local and national content for years to come.”

A Morning Edition host who was one of the two employees at WLVR-FM, LVPM’s radio station, was laid off. The station is operated through a partnership with Lehigh University.

As part of the cuts, LVPM’s Book Nook program, which provides free books to children, will be discontinued.

LVPM secured $82 million in the FCC spectrum auction in 2017. In 2018, it used those funds to invest in local news. LVPM started managing WLVR on behalf of Lehigh University in 2019. Lehigh Valley News was launched in 2022. Going forward, Lehigh Valley News will continue to publish stories on its website but will shift to a “newsletter-first model.” It currently offers 10 newsletters.

“With newsletters, we can group stories by topic, follow issues over time, and provide context to each topic instead of one-off updates,” Birdsong said through the spokesperson.

Birdsong told Lehigh Valley News that LVPM’s board of trustees wants the organization to “subsist” on 4% of its trust, which was about $80 million as of December. Past leadership “had failed to operate within those boundaries for years,” according to the article, and costs ballooned when the organization expanded to a record of 80 employees. LVPM laid off eight employees in December 2023.

“The challenges at Lehigh Valley Public Media reflect long-term structural shifts affecting public media and local journalism nationwide,” Birdsong said. “Declining and uncertain funding, rising operating costs, and changes in how audiences consume information made the traditional model increasingly difficult to sustain. These pressures built up over time, not overnight. Our focus now is on adapting responsibly so we can continue serving the Lehigh Valley for the long term.”