BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Lehigh Valley Public Media eliminated five positions Friday for a total of nine job cuts in the past three weeks — roughly 12% of its full-time workforce.
Positions cut were in marketing, membership and the television production departments of the nonprofit media organization.
Lehigh Valley Public Media includes PBS39, 91.3 WLVR radio and LehighValleyNews.com, which launched in October 2022. The news department was not included in either round of staff reductions.
Chief Executive Officer Tim Fallon delivered word of Friday’s layoffs in an email to staff, and met with team members in a noon meeting.
A prepared statement released by LVPM noted the cuts outside of news come as the organization created 22 new jobs on the news team since the launch of its free local news website last year.
"While this digital transformation has seen growth in the overall size of our organization, it has also required us to restructure to ensure that we focus our resources to fuel the needs of our new operation," the statement read.
“That restructuring was completed over the past few weeks and has resulted in the layoff of eight of our team members. We are grateful for their contributions during their time with us.”
One of the affected employees was offered a job in a different position, for a total of eight layoffs.
