WASHINGTON — The “PBS NewsHour,” the signature nightly newscast on public television, is planning its first significant round of layoffs in nearly two decades.
Amid declines in support from corporate sponsors, the show’s producer, MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, will close the two offices it has outside of the Washington, D.C., area — in Denver and San Francisco — and lay off most of the employees there. The company, which is based in Arlington, Va., will also eliminate several of what it calls “noncritical production positions” at its main office.
The cutbacks were described in an internal memorandum on Monday from Linda Winslow, the executive producer of the “NewsHour,” and Bo Jones, the chief executive of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. They said the reorganization, coming at a time of tightened purse-strings for public media, would “improve the long-term sustainability of the ‘NewsHour.’ ”
Along with the layoffs, some other savings will be achieved by leaving positions unfilled and by streamlining technical operations.
Reaction to the plan was mixed, both among NewsHour staff members and viewers on social media Web sites. Many expressed sadness about the layoffs and concern about the quality of news coverage, while others suggested the “NewsHour” producers were right to trim excess spending.
Earlier this year, public television employees who were not authorized to speak publicly told The New York Times that the production company was facing a shortfall of up to $7 million, a quarter of its $28 million overall budget, in the fiscal year that ends this month. It is unclear what the company’s budget for the next fiscal year forecast. But a spokeswoman for the “NewsHour” acknowledged that the reorganization, which will take place over several months starting in July, would help balance the budget.
The spokeswoman said that about 10 employees, of 100 total, would be affected.
Ms. Winslow and Mr. Jones said in their memo that the cutbacks were a result of, among other things, “a steady drop in corporate revenue.”
The shuttering of the offices in Denver and San Francisco will end an era for the “NewsHour,” which long ago also had offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Some positions were eliminated when the New York office was closed in 1995.
To make up for the loss of reporting staff outside the Washington area, “along with sending our own teams in the field, we anticipate building new relationships with a variety of locally based freelance video journalists around the country,” Ms. Winslow and Mr. Jones wrote. “Under no circumstances do we intend to abandon the mini-documentary reports that have become so critical to our broadcast. The ‘NewsHour’ remains committed to delivering the same kind of in-depth reporting our viewers and supporters expect from us.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/business/media/pbs-newshour-plans-layoffs-as-it-closes-offices.html?partner=rss&emc=rss