Lehigh Valley Public Media Has $79.3 Million in the Bank and Still Wants Your Money; One Member Questions Vision, Another Wonders About the Brand; `Small Layoff’ in August

Sept. 30, 2025

— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs

Lehigh Valley Public Media, still known to many as Channel 39, has $79.3 million in the bank.

That money came from a 2017 auction of rights to use public airwaves. LVPM took in $82 million.

Still, the organization wants more money — your money.

I attended LVPM’s board meeting yesterday, where the $79.3 million current investment total was disclosed.

That’s enough money to give each of the 700,000 residents of Lehigh and Northampton counties a check for $113. Perhaps we could have a referendum on that.

The meeting went long, but a couple interesting things happened. I’ll have more later, but a few quick points.

— Board member Todd Donnelly said that before LVPM asks for more money from donors, it should decide what it is.

“We just have to have a direction where we’re going to be able to go out and raise money, to be able to tell exactly where we’re going and until we do that I don’t feel comfortable” with LVPM asking for more money. “I don’t think we’re there yet,” Donnelly said, noting, “We’re not sure who we are.”

Yet the fundraising will continue. I wonder, when they ask for donations, do they start with, “We have $79.3 million but we need you to give us money?”

— Board member Luis Campos raised an issue that has vexed me a bit too: What is the organization’s brand? Lehigh Valley Public Media? PBS39? The signs at the headquarters don’t even make that clear.

The board did say it was moving toward governance (oversight, setting goals) from management of the organization. Then there was a lot of micromanagement. Old habits are hard to break.

Chief Executive Hassana Birdsong has been on the job about three months. She talked about “strategic brand positioning,” which is jargon for something.

Birdsong has been working hard, no doubt, but is this organization reaching anybody?

“Community engagement” is a meaningless term that gets thrown around a lot at LVPM. Giving the community something it wants is what matters.

Birdsong said three times that the staff is “tired.”

If I’d told top management at my old job in New York that my work made me tired … well, the result would not have been pretty.

Times may be trying, but that’s life.

Birdsong is making changes. There was “a small layoff” in August, it was noted at the meeting. The staff is now at 45, down from 80 during the crazy spend-spend-spend years of fiscal 2023 and 2024.

Ask the people who were terminated if they’re “tired.”

She is also abolishing the unlimited paid time off policy. That’s a good move. She has been on the job for less than 90 days. We will see if this place gets its act together.

Lehigh Valley Public Media’s headquarters is in south Bethlehem.

The organization has three parts, maybe four.

— LehighValleyNews.com is a digital media outlet.

— WLVR FM 91.3 is a public radio outlet that is owned by Lehigh University but run by LVPM. The future of the station is in doubt. Nothing solid was said about that at Monday’s meeting.

— PBS39, or Channel 39, the name oldtimers still use for the organization, is a public television outlet.

Then there is a nebulous fourth element. Some board members appear to think of LVPM as a social agency. It is not, and that fuzzy thinking is part of the reason this organization is in trouble, even though it has an investment account that some colleges would envy.

It’s time for this organization, by any name, to face cold hard reality and justify that $79.3 million of public funds.