Jan. 26, 2026
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
After a few years of fiscal folly, Lehigh Valley Public Media is trying to live within its means.
It’s still losing money, and even after listening to today’s Board of Directors’ meeting, I have no idea what the organization’s direction is.
The operation has a staff of 24 as of today, according to Chief Executive Hasanna Birdsong. She took over last year and inherited a big mess. A few years back, this outfit was spending like crazy and had 80 employees.
Today’s meeting was the board’s since LVPM fired almost half of its staff on Jan. 16.
Big cuts were inevitable. LVPM ran a fiscal 2023 deficit of $8.66 million. The next year, its deficit was $7.2 million, even with a federal subsidy that was wiped out in 2025. So the deficit was their own fault. An insane $1,000 per hour loss in fiscal 2023, and close in 2024.
I started pointing out the problems a couple years ago and got hate email — anonymous — for stating the obvious. See this link for details on the spending and some big salaries.
To those who sent the hate mail: I put my name out there while you (I know who some of you are) hide behind anonymity. Buzz off, jerks.
LVPM operates Channel 39, WLVR FM radio (owned by Lehigh University) and an online news outlet.
The operation still has about $82 million in the bank, public money courtesy of an auction of public airwaves in 2017. The public outlet then went on a spending spree, paying its top four officials (all gone now) a total of about $1 million annually and hiring people for a public television news venture that failed.
Yes, I repeat public intentionally. Public money should lead to some kind of public good, not just public blathering.
The spending couldn’t go on forever, and the day of reckoning came, costing a lot of people their jobs. The staff list has not been updated as of today. It still lists 41 employees. There have been other firings over the past couple years.
The total pay for the Big Four employees during the spend-spend years was about $1 million annually. Each was making more than $200,000. Good pay for running big deficits. All have been gone for more than a year.
New Chairman Laks Srinivasan also said today that LVPM is cutting its board to seven members from 12. Good move. Twelve is too many. He also said there will be no committees for now, also a good move.
Srinivasan also talked about using Artificial Intelligence to compile minutes of board meetings. That should result in some unintentionally funny notes.
Among those leaving the main board are Susan Yee, former head of the board, and Todd Donnelly, who said at a meeting last year that the organization should not ask for more money “when we’re not sure who we are.”
LVPM’s board has been talking for years now about a transformation, and Donnelly said, “I don’t think we’re there yet.”
They are not.
I don’t know where they are, but I do know that about 20 people got sent home on Jan. 16. Lehigh Valley News did some good work, and still will, but less of it. Delusions of grandeur at the top a couple years ago hurt people who did the work.
The five former board members will serve on LVPM’s Community Advisory Board, which is not a governing body. Its members are listed at this link, below the Board of Directors.
Srinivasan said the board and management had to face tough choices, referring to job cuts.
He also said the organization’s goal is “making sure LVPM is going to be around for the next 100 years.”
Why? What is it? Right now it’s a big bank account seeking a cause, a pile of money that has allowed LVPM to ignore reality for years. That bank account is public money and should go toward a public good.
The big question remains: what is LVPM going to be and is there another way the Lehigh Valley can use that $82 million? Saving open space, something tangible.
Right now the money is going toward a television station with low ratings, a radio station I don’t think LVPM wants and a news outlet that just lost most of its staff.
It’s a mess.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 