Vermont PBS and Vermont Public Radio will merge into one public media organization, the companies announced Wednesday, following a unanimous vote from both organizations’ boards.
The merger is awaiting IRS tax-exempt status and approval from the Federal Communications Commission, both of which are expected to come through without a hitch. Pending those approvals, the new organization is set to launch on July 1, 2021.
In a press conference Wednesday, leaders from both organizations said the hope is the merger will increase financial sustainability for both companies, but they said the move was not made out of financial necessity. Scott Finn, CEO of VPR, said no cuts to programming or staffing are anticipated. Finn will lead the new, merged organization.
“The first thing that I want to let people know is that all the programming that they love and they depend on that’s already on VPR and Vermont PBS, is going to be there for them tomorrow and into the future,” Finn said. “Morning Edition, Masterpiece Theater, Mister Chris and Friends, VPR Classical, all of that will still be there.”
The purpose of the merger is to add programming, in part through collaboration. In the coming weeks, the community will be asked to weigh in on how they would like to see VPR and Vermont PBS collaborate and try to build programming that way.
Leaders of VPR and Vermont PBS estimated Wednesday that VPR has a $9.4 million annual budget, 73 employees, and about $30 million in assets, while Vermont PBS has a roughly $7.8 million budget, 42 employees, and around $60 million in assets. Vermont PBS netted $56 million in 2017 when it sold one of its broadcast licenses in a spectrum auction.
Steve Ferreira, CEO of Vermont PBS said the merger works well because the two organizations have extremely similar business models, with both raising donations through membership, underwriting and donations. They maintained they offered complimentary services and that both organizations have similar listeners and viewers.
“We just fit well together,” Ferrariea said. He will serve as the chief operating officer of the new organization.
Similar mergers in other parts of the country have shown that large donors are often supportive, Finn said, and a loss in membership shouldn’t be a concern. The combined entity expects to see an increase in membership revenue over time. Vermont PBS has around 18,000 contributing members, while VPR has around 28,000.
Finn ran a similar combined entity, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, before he became CEO of VPR.
Ferreira said as smaller newspapers in Vermont continue to fold, and people continue to move away from linear television, media organizations need to constantly innovate to keep up with the changing landscape.
Nicole Ravlin, vice chair of VPR’s board, said the idea was on the back-burner for many years. Over the past year, though, she said, those conversations have moved to the forefront. Ravlin will chair the new combined board.
Ravlin said the merger won’t make VPR and Vermont PBS threateningly big. Their intent is to provide better educational services to Vermonters.
“We’re not coming together to be a behemoth news organization, or to put anyone out of business, or even to make the audience bifurcated,” Ravlin said. “News is just one aspect of a lot of other types of programming.”
As far as physical office and broadcasting space for the new organization, Finn said the future remains uncertain. However, he said a group of staff is looking at a variety of options for space. For years, the two organizations were located near each other in separate buildings in the Fort Ethan Allen complex which straddles the Colchester and Essex town lines. Vermont PBS moved to downtown Winooski earlier this year.
“The other thing that complicates the situation is Covid-19,” he said. “The vast majority of both of our staffs are working from home, so it’s very hard for us to anticipate our office needs right now.”
David Mindich, journalism department chair at Temple University and a former St. Michael’s College professor, said that Max Frankel, a former executive editor of the New York Times, wrote in his autobiography that having a decent profit margin is good for newsrooms — so that organizations don’t have to cut corners, lay off staff, or fire copy editors.
“When you have a news entity with a lot of cash, the financial pressures aren’t there,” he said.
Mindich said in general, though, the Vermont news ecosystem is strong — and VPR and Vermont PBS are a big part of that. For its size, he said he thinks Vermont’s Statehouse reporting is better than almost anywhere else in the country.
“This merger would only strengthen that,” he said.
Traci Griffith, an associate professor of media studies at St. Mike’s, said public broadcasters — whether they are in radio or television, are technically owned by the people, something she said makes them oftentimes even better sources of information than their corporate counterparts.
She said a merger of two public broadcasters — especially if it will save either one from going under, can only be a good thing in a small news ecosystem like Vermont’s.
“There’s so many media outlets falling by the wayside that can’t compete, can’t keep up, can’t provide content and information that we need in a functioning democracy,” Griffith said. “If we end up with a larger organization that is better capable of providing news and information that the public needs, that’s definitely a good thing.”
