— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
PBS 39, now known as Lehigh Valley Public Media, has a new interim Chief Executive, is seeking a permanent CEO, and is still losing money. Less than before, and it has cut expenses.
Still it’s losing money. Below are a few bullet points from Monday’s annual meeting of the Board of Directors. I’ll have more details and quotations later.
A lot happened Monday, and those moves are positive, but the big question remains:
What is the future of this organization? It now has $75 million in invested funds, but for what?
Without $82 million in federal funds the organization received six years ago, it would not have been able to make some expensive decisions that didn’t turn out well. Or if it had made those decisions without that windfall, it would no longer exist.
Mistakes happen. We all make them; ideally we learn from them.
$82 million covers a lot of sins, but it’s time to stop pretending.
Some non-profit groups tend to pretend. LVPM is finally facing reality, but there is still an element of fantasy here, that getting awards and giving awards means anything, that having a nice event with a few dozen people matters.
That’s pretend. The bottom line matters, serving the public matters. Showing that the $75 million left (endowment policy, anybody?) is accomplishing something measurable matters most of all.
LVPM consists of a public online media outlet, a television station and a radio station. TV ratings are down, the WLVR radio station has been basically ignored, according to a person at the Monday meeting, and the organization ran an $8.66 million deficit in fiscal 2023 after starting the digital media outfit.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The fiscal 2023 deficit came out to about $1,000 per hour. $1,000 PER HOUR.
Some facts from Monday:
— Board member Laks Srinivasan is the interim CEO, for perhaps 90 days. He will not be paid. Srinivasan is a co-founder of the Return on AI Institute, which helps organizations use Artificial Intelligence.
— The Board of Directors approved a search for a permanent Chief Executive. It hired Sally A. Sterling Executive Search to find that person, in what could be a 90- to 120-day process.
“Based in the Greater Washington DC area, Sally M. Sterling Executive Search is a female owned executive search services firm specializing in areas of Nonprofit and Board Leadership,” according to the Sterling website.
— LVPM (which has gone by a few names in the past few years) cut expenses $1 million in the fiscal year-to-date versus the previous year. With a fiscal year starting in July, that’s a $1 million cut over four months.
Details weren’t discussed, but a cut like that had to come from personnel, and in most cases, the people losing jobs were not the ones making decisions that led to the huge fiscal 2023 deficit. While three of the top four officers from that year are no longer with the company, former Chief Executive Tim Fallon is now CEO Emeritus. He was not at the meeting Monday.
— LVPM is still withdrawing money from its investments. Operating revenue is not covering expenses.
— Michael Keim will serve as chairman of the board for a second year. He is president of Univest Bank and Trust Co. and chief operating officer of Univest Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:UVSP).
— LVPM’s management of the WLVR radio station was challenged. I will have more on that later. The board appears to want to put things back on track at the station (FM 91.3), which is owned by Lehigh University.
— LVPM’s tax return, as a Form 990, may be available later this month. The organization’s tax returns are public and are more interesting than the reruns the television station shows at night. Take a look here courtesy of the fine folks are ProPublica.
There were five people from the public at the meeting in South Bethlehem. Two former employees, two people to talk about the radio station, and a burned-out former wire editor turned crazy blogger.
That was me, of course. While WLVT did not respond to my emails when I started posting about this, I appreciate the courtesy and professionalism shown at Monday’s meeting.
Nobody from the traditional media was there. That’s sad. The old Channel 39 used to get a lot of coverage.
More on the Monday meeting later.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 
Hello- Can you share more about this?
LVPM’s management of the WLVR radio station was challenged. I will have more on that later. The board appears to want to put things back on track at the station (FM 91.3), which is owned by Lehigh University.
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