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WQED to lay off 35% of staff due to federal funding cuts

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

current.org

WQED to lay off 35% of staff due to federal funding cuts

The organization laid off 19 employees, primarily in its marketing, membership and production departments.
current.org current.org

This is in response to the CPB cuts and it affects the TV and radio operations at WQED Pittsburgh.

WQED Multimedia in Pittsburgh will lay off 19 staffers, the station announced Wednesday.

The layoffs represent 35% of the station’s full- and part-time staff, CEO Jason Jedlinski told Current in an email. The organization runs a TV station and a classical radio station.

The majority of the positions cut are in the marketing, membership and production departments, according to a WQED press release announcing the workforce reduction. The cuts are a response to the elimination of CPB funding earlier this month, WQED said.

The organization faces the loss of $1.8 million annually in CPB funding and expects to take on new expenses, such as music licensing costs that CPB has covered for public broadcasters.
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The federal money to WQED wasn't cut because they were overstaffed. The federal money was cut because the president feels NPR News is biased and doesn't want to pay for it. WQED is what we call "collateral damage." This was money that had been appropriated, and therefore guaranteed. WQED had every reason to expect the money, and there was no reason for it to have been taken away from them. They did nothing wrong. They were not the intended target.
 
TheBigA said:
The federal money to WQED wasn't cut because they were overstaffed. The federal money was cut because the president feels NPR News is biased and doesn't want to pay for it. WQED is what we call "collateral damage." This was money that had been appropriated, and therefore guaranteed. WQED had every reason to expect the money, and there was no reason for it to have been taken away from them. They did nothing wrong. They were not the intended target.
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With Trump, always consider the mint ended consequences.
 
I'm curious if they'll still move and build out new studios as they had planned, costing them $$$$$$$$$$$ instead of staying in their current location and riding out the (I think it's) 50 more years they have left of $1 rent...

I love WQED because of its heritage and enjoy their FM classical station, but I won't give them a penny if they move studio locations as they're planning to. From a financial perspective, it appears to be just plain dumb and not a good use of their money. And from a historical perspective... Sad. Very sad.
 
When WQED says 19 employes my question is how many are on the TV side and how many for WQED FM. Of the $1,800,000 lost, how much went to TV and how much to radio?
 
b-turner said:
When WQED says 19 employes my question is how many are on the TV side and how many for WQED FM. Of the $1,800,000 lost, how much went to TV and how much to radio?
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Here's radio:

PennsylvaniaPittsburghWQEDRadio Community Service Grant$114,502

The rest went to TV.

BTW, WYEP received more than $400K. Not anymore.
 
TheBigA said:
I've heard the same thing said about iHeart. Who needs local talent? Run the place just like K-Love.
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And, of course, that is the formula that works in most of the nations with free commercial radio. In general, those nations also find a higher percentage of ad budgets going to radio because "national stations" are easy to buy and deliver a consistent audience.
 
TheBigA said:
Actually they're running DHS spots now paid for with public money.
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You keep confusing "funding" with "advertising". The federal government agencies have long been using paid radio and TV (and newspaper and magazine) ads to make the public aware of everything from legal notices to employment opportunities to government programs. Same for state and local governments, too.
 
So if we do the math, that means there were around 55 full & part-time employees there. That does seem (to me at least) to be on the high side for an organization with a single TV station and single classical radio station. Especially considering (to my knowledge - please correct me if I'm wrong) there's not a ton of locally originating programming on the TV side. It's not 1970 w/ Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood anymore at WQED.

I'm not advocating that a bunch of their employees are fired/laid off as is now the case. But I do question whether 55 full & part-time employees were needed. The number seems high at first blush. But admittedly, I don't have a TV nor any streaming services, so I don't know what all they do on their TV channel - just what I've heard. I do listen to the FM relatively frequently, though.
 


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