WBAI-FM, the noncommercial radio station that has been a liberal fixture in New York for more than 50 years, laid off about two-thirds of its staff last week, including its entire news department, because of long-simmering financial difficulties.

In a tearful on-air announcement on Friday, Summer Reese, the interim executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, which owns WBAI, said that after talks with SAG-Aftra, the union that represents broadcasting talent, “we will be laying off virtually everyone whose voice you recognize on the air,” effective Monday.

She said on the air that 75 percent of the staff would be let go, but in an interview over the weekend she said that the final number was 19 out of the station’s 29 employees, about 66 percent.

Andrew Phillips, the former general manager of another of Pacifica’s five stations, KPFA-FM in Berkeley, Calif., has been appointed WBAI’s interim program director.

A spokeswoman for SAG-Aftra declined to comment.

Pacifica also operates stations in Washington, Houston and Los Angeles, and syndicates popular public affairs programs like “Democracy Now!,” which started at WBAI in 1996.

WBAI, which broadcasts at 99.5 FM, has long struggled financially, and its leadership structure has been described as anarchic. But its problems multiplied last year after Hurricane Sandy, when it was forced to vacate its studios on Wall Street. In March, the station began a drive to raise $500,000 to pay back rent on its transmitter. Ms. Reese said the station had millions of dollars in debt and had operated at a loss since 2004. She said the Pacifica network had repeatedly drained its finances to cover WBAI’s expenses. The station, she added, could no longer afford to make its payroll and was laying off employees to pay its transmitter rent and to avoid being forced to sell its broadcast license.

WBAI is not the only troubled Pacifica station. Ms. Reese recently said that WPFW-FM in Washington might not be able “to get through until September.” Over the weekend she said that since Pacifica had been dealing with these troubled stations, “the entire enterprise is distressed,” but that by fixing its finances the network could survive.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/business/media/wbai-fm-lays-off-most-of-staff.html?partner=rss&emc=rss