Lehigh Valley Public Media Ponders Future of Radio, Former CEO Leaves Board, Revenue Is Still Falling Short

— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs

Lehigh Valley Public Media’s board of directors worked through a lot during a 35-minute meeting Monday.

The organization — formerly Channel 39, now a public media/television/radio outfit – is in the “last phases of a strategic plan.” What that means is a mystery. The world “strategic” is jargon, adding no meaning, just pseudo-gravitas.

Quick bullet points:

— The future of WLVR Radio FM 91.3 is in doubt. The station is run by Lehigh Valley Public Media (LVPM) but owned by Lehigh University. No final decision has been made.

— Tim Fallon, former chief executive of LVPM, has resigned from the board. The explanation given Monday was that he has moved. Last February, Fallon became “CEO Emeritus.” He was due to stay on the board until 2027.

Fallon was CEO during fiscal 2023, when LVPM accomplished something truly staggering. This little public operation spent $15.15 million while taking in $6.49 million, for a loss of $8.66 million — almost $1,000 per hour. I admit I repeat myself on this a lot, but really, it’s monumental.

Say what you will about the red ink, this is pretty remarkable. Not just anybody could make that happen. The board later deemed those results unacceptable. One has to wonder, at what point during that year did somebody notice things weren’t going well?

— LVPM’s revenue is short of its goals. This is nothing new, but not good news either. I’ll get more into the numbers later. There does seem to be awareness now that budgets matter, even if they aren’t hitting their numbers. Staff has been cut to about 49, down from 80.

Remember, this is the organization that received $82 million of public money from a sale of airwave rights. The money — equivalent to 820,000 $100 bills — showed up in 2018.

Now, LVPM has just $74.4 million in investments. The endowment has not only not held steady, it has declined. In an earlier item, I noted three common-sense approaches to handling that much money. Invest it and build the account; invest it and re-invest half, operate on the rest, or invest it and spend all the return (about $5 million at 6% annually).

Option 4: Invest it all in Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and we’d all be rich, even with Nvidia’s big drop Monday.

I asked Monday if LVPM has an endowment policy. I’m still not sure, but if they do have one, perhaps it wasn’t followed.

Instead, the endowment has been tapped, drawn down, drained, spent, whatever you want to call it, on pet projects.

In 2018, what is now known as LVPM started something called Reporter Corps, deeming it “one of the most significant journalistic hirings in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania in decades.”

Seriously, that is how the organization communicates, reminiscent of the tablets from Mount Sinai. Is it any wonder that this television news program disappeared quietly a few years — and no doubt several million dollars — later?

The same crew that created the wonder of Reporter Corps stayed in place. In 2022, LVPM started an online news outlet. It’s funded by the government, ultimately it would not exist without that $82 million windfall.

That was followed by the $8.66 million deficit in fiscal 2023.

Also coming up, LVPM’s Good Neighbor Awards. I deserve at least to be nominated, but I’m not going to reserve a table.

Also Monday, there was some other media interest, finally, in the South Bethlehem Boondoggle. We will see what they come up with, but some sun needs to shine on this mess. Two reporters were on the Zoom call.

A few members of the public also spoke up in favor of WLVR. Expect a decision soon, they were told.

I’ll have more on the meeting later, and more on the late Alfred “A.J. Fritz” Fritzinger’s comments on WLVR. Fritzinger spoke at length about the station at LVPM’s Dec. 2 meeting. He died Dec. 31.