Colorado Public Radio Eliminates 15 Positions, Wipes Out Podcasting Department

The station, which also manages KRCC and Denverite, spent $8.34 on new headquarters last year, which "still needs substantial interior construction."

Hello Beautiful Audio People!

I’ve got good news and bad news today: The good news is that I’m working on a few stories and will be publishing more regularly, at least for the next few weeks (though, you probably won’t hear from me every week). The bad news is that Colorado Public Radio has cut 15 positions, which includes most, if not all staffers who work in the station’s podcasting department. In an internal memo to employees which I viewed yesterday, CEO and President Stewart Vanderwilt wrote that

Over the past year we have had several conversations about the financial challenges facing CPR and the greater media landscape. Many of those conversations have focused on efforts to reduce expenses while seeking revenue growth in order to eliminate our ongoing deficit. Unfortunately, to align our expenses with our revenue projections, we need to reassess our priorities and implement more significant measures.

This week, 15 of your colleagues have learned that their positions are being eliminated. It was important that those impacted were personally notified before sharing with the rest of the organization and those notifications are now complete.

These layoffs are not a reflection of the quality of work of our talented colleagues.

We have come to this decision after looking hard at our current revenue and projections for the coming year. We need to be on a path to sustainability, and we must restore some of the resources and benefits that were previously eliminated or frozen.

I’m withholding specific names of laid off employees, with the exception of Brad Turner, the head of the station’s “Audio Innovation Studio,” because CPR has quietly revealed his layoff to the public:

Yesterday, I reached out to the station for comment and was told that the station would provide a “comprehensive statement after we have had the opportunity to speak with our full staff.” I made the (perhaps naive) decision to hold off on this piece until then. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that a half an hour later, the station published an article on their website about the news, which is now appearing in various online articles. (You’re welcome, guys; I’ve never been much of a “scoop” reporter anyways.)

According to CPR’s story, the layoffs will help correct the over-expansion at CPR over the past 5 years. Here’s more:

In recent years revenue has grown but has not kept pace with expenses. CPR lists on its website that expenses had exceeded revenue by $1.3 million in fiscal year 2022 and $2.3 million in fiscal year 2023. Member giving has remained strong, but corporate sponsorship was down. Meanwhile, programming and fundraising expenses - driven in part by employee costs - have risen by millions of dollars.

This chart demonstrates that the aforementioned “employee costs” did indeed rise, particularly between 2019 and 2020, when the CPR grew from 150 to 200 employees.

However, the station made even bigger bets when it took charge of KRCC in Colorado Springs, acquired Denverite, a website about local news, and especially when it spent $8.34 million (provided by “as-yet-undisclosed donors”) on brand new headquarters last year. According to the station’s own reporting, “The building still needs substantial interior construction for studios and offices. CPR projected it would take three years to finish the project.”

Yikes.

More to come on all of this at a later date. In the meantime, if you work/worked at CPR, and have information you think I should know, please reach out. I always honor requests for anonymity. You can find me at skyepillsatwork@gmail.com, and we can jump over to WhatsApp or Signal or the good old-fashioned phone from there.

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Postscript

Just gonna leave this here.

Have a great day!