NPR Feeling Tough Economy, Cuts 64 Jobs

Although NPR has hit a near-record audience of 26.4 million listeners a week, budget shortfalls will cause an additional 21 open jobs unfilled. The economy is also causing NPR to reduce expenses in reporting, production, communications, and administration, travel and station services. With these cuts, NPR hopes to trim $23 million from their 2009 budget.

Saying corporate sponsorships have all but evaporated, NPR cites a worsening economy as the reason a $2 million deficit was projected back in July when the new budget was approved. Corporate sponsors normally attributed a huge chunk to the NPR bottom line, bringing in $47 million; however, only $33 million is projected for 2009 resulting in job cuts and other cutbacks.

“We hope that’s the basement, and we hope to do a little better than that. But we have to plan for that,” Dennis Haarsager, NPR’s interim president and chief executive, said in an interview.

Because of lower investment earnings from foundations and wealthy donors, the projected revenue from these contribution streams has been reduced by $4 million for 2009. Unfortunately, the law prohibits NPR from reaching into an endowment created after McDonald’s restaurant heir Joan Kroc donated $200 million to the public radio company in 2003.

Both of the canceled shows were selected because cutting those shows “seemed to have the least impact on our audience,” Mr. Haarsager said, and it will allow NPR to avoid making “a thousand cuts in everything.”

The general interest program “Day to Day” has close to 2 million weekly listeners but the audience is small compared to the nearly 13 million weekly listeners for “Morning Edition.”

“News & Notes” examines current news affairs from an African-American perspective. The elimination of that program “is not what I’d like to do,” Mr. Haarsager said, but he added that NPR has a larger African-American audience for “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” which also serves the African-American audience with “Tell Me More.”