WBUR Offers Buyouts To Cut Budget
• Boston NPR affiliate WBUR 90.9 announced employee buyouts Tuesday in an effort to close a multimillion-dollar budget deficit and reduce the number of layoffs needed in coming months.
In a letter to employees, WBUR CEO Margaret Low said the station needs to cut at least $4 million in expenses, or roughly 10% of its budget, through job cuts and other cost-cutting measures. She did not say how many jobs the station plans to eliminate. Low said WBUR must trim expenses even as its audience grows, because of a decline in sponsorships and a shift in the media landscape that has social media sites and internet giants vacuuming up massive amounts of advertising dollars. “WBUR has never been stronger,” Low said, but “the business has never been harder.”
WBUR’s financial challenges mirror those of other news organizations that announced similar job cuts this year, all citing a drop in revenue from ads and business sponsorships. Colorado Public Radio eliminated 15 jobs earlier this month in its audio production and podcast units. Last month RAMP reported that American University’s WAMU/Washington, D.C. downsized 15 employees and shuttered its DCist website, while NPR cut 10% of its staff last year.
WBUR has already frozen some open positions and looked for other ways to trim expenses, but so far that hasn’t been enough to balance the budget. Low said the station will ultimately need to make an unspecified number of layoffs, but hopes to reduce that number through these voluntary buyouts.
The company will offer full-time or part-time employees who work a regular weekly schedule one week of severance and health benefits for every year they have worked at WBUR or Boston University (which holds WBUR’s license), plus an additional four weeks of pay. Workers who take the offer will remain with the station until May 10. The full story is posted here.
