https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158710498/npr-layoffs-2023

Accessibility links

  * Skip to main content
  * Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

  * Open Navigation Menu
  * NPR logo
  * 
  * 
  * NPR Shop
  * 

> Close Navigation Menu

  * Home
  * News Expand/collapse submenu for News
      + National
      + World
      + Politics
      + Business
      + Health
      + Science
      + Climate
      + Race
  * Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture
      + Books
      + Movies
      + Television
      + Pop Culture
      + Food
      + Art & Design
      + Performing Arts
      + Life Kit
  * Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music
      + Tiny Desk
      + #NowPlaying
      + All Songs Considered
      + Music Features
      + Live Sessions
  * Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows
    Daily
      + [morning-ed] Morning Edition
      + [we_otheren] Weekend Edition Saturday
      + [we_otheren] Weekend Edition Sunday
      + [all-things] All Things Considered
      + [fresh-air] Fresh Air
      + [up-first] Up First
    Featured
      + [embedded-t] Embedded
      + [pm_new_til] Planet Money
      + [life-kit_t] Life Kit
      + [book-of-th] NPR's Book of the Day
      + More Podcasts & Shows
  * Search
  * 
  * NPR Shop

  * NPR Music NPR Music
  * Tiny Desk
  * #NowPlaying
  * All Songs Considered
  * Music Features
  * Live Sessions

  * About NPR
  * Diversity
  * Organization
  * Support
  * Careers
  * Connect
  * Press
  * Ethics

NPR announces layoffs, cutting jobs by 10% as ad revenue drops NPR
must lay off 10% of its workforce to address an advertising shortfall
of about $30 million, CEO John Lansing says. Lansing says marketers
are nervous about the economy.

Media

With layoffs, NPR becomes latest media outlet to cut jobs

  * Facebook
  * Twitter
  * Flipboard
  * Email

Updated February 23, 20238:28 AM ET Originally published February 22,
202312:11 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
David Folkenflik 2018 square

David Folkenflik

Twitter

With layoffs, NPR becomes latest media outlet to cut jobs

Listen * 3:16 3:16
Toggle more options

  * Download
  * Embed
    Embed [<iframe src="https:/] <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/
    player/embed/1158710498/1158826147" width="100%" height="290"
    frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  * Transcript

[gettyimage]
Enlarge this image

NPR will cut 10% of its workforce, CEO John Lansing said Wednesday.
Lansing blamed a slowdown in advertising dollars. Saul Loeb/AFP via
Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

NPR will cut 10% of its workforce, CEO John Lansing said Wednesday.
Lansing blamed a slowdown in advertising dollars.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

NPR's chief executive announced the network would lay off roughly 10%
of its current workforce - at least 100 people - and eliminate most
vacant positions. CEO John Lansing cited the erosion of advertising
dollars, particularly for NPR podcasts, and the tough financial
outlook for the media industry more generally.

"When we say we are eliminating filled positions, we are talking
about our colleagues - people whose skills, spirit and talents help
make NPR what it is today," Lansing wrote in a memo to staff today.
"This will be a major loss."

On an annual budget of roughly $300 million, Lansing says, revenues
are likely to fall short by close to $30 million, although that gap
could reach $32 million.

"We're not seeing signs of a recovery in the advertising market,"
Lansing says in an interview. "Nothing is nailed down yet except the
principles and what we know we have to reach."

The layoffs are in keeping with an increasingly grim landscape for
media companies over recent months. Vox Media cut jobs by 7%; Gannett
and Spotify by 6%. The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff
Bezos, eliminated its Sunday magazine and a handful of other jobs.
After becoming part of Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN cut hundreds of
jobs and killed off its brand-new streaming service, CNN+.

Tech companies that also rely heavily on advertising are undergoing
layoffs too. Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft have announced more
than 50,000 job cuts combined in just the past few months. Yet the
tech and media industries' prospects stand at odds with a tight labor
market and low unemployment more broadly.

5 takeaways from the massive layoffs hitting Big Tech right now

Technology

5 takeaways from the massive layoffs hitting Big Tech right now

No details on which jobs will be cut

NPR's programming division, which produces its industry-leading
podcasts, has more than doubled since 2019. Lansing says he remains
committed to podcasting "1,000 percent," as well as the network's
hallmark news magazines, such as Morning Edition and All Things
Considered.

Lansing says he does not yet know who within NPR will be affected,
but said the job cuts would not fall evenly across the organization.

"I don't anticipate that it would be like a haircut across every
division, because that's just not management," Lansing says.
"Management is about committing to strategy, making tough decisions."

He also vowed to make sure job cuts do not fall disproportionately on
employees of color.

An NPR spokeswoman said final decisions on which jobs will be
eliminated should occur by the week of March 20.

When asked about his priorities, Lansing invoked what he has called
the network's "North Star'' since his arrival in the fall of 2019: a
push to ensure the network has a bigger and broader audience base,
rooted in younger and more diverse listeners, readers and consumers.
The emphasis, he says, must be on drawing in "the future audience to
make NPR sustainable for the next 50 years."

Layoffs come after near-total freeze on hiring, travel and
internships

Lansing, formerly a top television executive for the E.W. Scripps
Co., says whenever an economic slowdown appears imminent, marketing
budgets get slashed. (On NPR's radio side, advertising takes the form
of underwriting, as corporate sponsors are not permitted to call for
listeners to purchase goods or services.)

Last year, the network booked $134 million in such corporate
underwriting, a record built on strong growth in podcasting revenue
in recent years. Fearing a tepid economy, Lansing and his corporate
team projected that revenue would stay flat for the fiscal year that
began October 1.

Within a few weeks, Lansing became convinced that projection would be
unreachable. In late November, the network announced $20 million in
cuts, including a near-freeze on hiring, elimination of most travel,
and suspension of internships.

NPR to impose near-freeze on hiring but avoids layoffs as budget cuts
loom

Media

NPR to impose near-freeze on hiring but avoids layoffs as budget cuts
loom

Lansing says even that proved overly optimistic.

"We were doing everything we could against the tide and couldn't keep
clipping our costs as the revenue kept slipping," Lansing says. "And
we finally got to the point where there was nothing really that we
could cut big enough to fill a hole like that."

In setting NPR's earlier rounds of budget cuts a couple months ago,
Lansing consulted ahead of time with leaders of the unions
representing workers at NPR with an eye to avoiding any layoffs. He
won praise for doing so and says he informed leaders of SAG-AFTRA on
Tuesday about the impending job cuts. The union represents 570 people
at NPR. Pat O'Donnell, the executive director of the union's
Mid-Atlantic unit, could not be reached for comment for this story.

Reminiscent of layoffs during 2008 financial crisis

The last time NPR faced such stark choices, it was 2008. During that
financial crisis, NPR shut down shows and laid off scores of people.
For several years, it eliminated salary increases and suspended
retirement contributions. NPR's total workforce has grown by about 50
percent since before that crisis.

During the pandemic, NPR sidestepped layoffs through temporary cuts
to pay and retirement contributions, distributed with an eye to
shielding less well-paid employees, so they were most sharply felt by
the most highly compensated staffers and executives. This time,
Lansing says he is not confident the money will return anytime soon,
so the network and its board have to plan more strategically.

Last fall, when announcing the earlier cuts, Lansing said the network
would have to make tough choices - and to "do less with less." Now,
he says, it must drum up more creative income sources, like the
licensing of the popular show How I Built This to Amazon's streaming
services, which he says generates $8 million annually.

NPR aims to work more efficiently with local public radio stations

NPR undertook a strategic reorganization last fall, reinstating the
position of a chief content officer overseeing both the newsroom and
the programming division. The newsroom currently stands at just shy
of 490 people, while programming has shot up to 230. That content
executive position has not yet been filled; its creation led to the
departure of then-NPR chief news executive Nancy Barnes.

NPR chief news executive Nancy Barnes to depart as network reshapes
top ranks

Media

NPR chief news executive Nancy Barnes to depart as network reshapes
top ranks

Such distinctions between news and programming are tricky, however,
as programming oversees podcasts, including those that perform
journalistic functions, such as Code Switch, It's Been A Minute,
Planet Money, and Throughline. New podcasts Up First, Consider This 
and State of Ukraine sit on both sides.

January is often a big month for layoffs. Here's what to do in a
worst case scenario

Your Money

January is often a big month for layoffs. Here's what to do in a
worst case scenario

Lansing has also put significant stock into what he calls the NPR
Network, which calls for greater unity of coverage and digital
initiatives, such as newsletters, streaming, podcasts and more. It is
intended to align the strategy of its often fractious member stations
with one another and NPR itself and to allow NPR, for the first time,
to raise money digitally from its audience in concert with those
stations.

"A really important strategic vector that we'll be talking about more
within the company going forward is maximizing the value of the
content wherever it can live and wherever the audience demands it,"
NPR Chief Operating Officer Will Lee says in an interview. "What
we've shown with podcasting is that we can take some of our core
journalistic assets and we can create new formats and new programs
around them and actually reach new audiences. And I think we have to
extend that lead."

"It's always difficult in these situations, and I don't want to
minimize the impact that it will have on our colleagues and in some
cases, you know, our ability to do what we do," Lee says. "However,
when you think how we look out longer term, right, not just for 20
years, but several years out, it's really about building a
sustainable financial future for NPR."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media
Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Acting Chief Business
Editor Emily Kopp. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no
corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it
was posted publicly.

  * John Lansing
  * job cuts
  * layoffs
  * NPR

  * Facebook
  * Twitter
  * Flipboard
  * Email

Read & Listen

  * Home
  * News
  * Culture
  * Music
  * Podcasts & Shows

Connect

  * Newsletters
  * Facebook
  * Twitter
  * Instagram
  * Press
  * Contact & Help

About NPR

  * Overview
  * Diversity
  * Accessibility
  * Ethics
  * Finances
  * Public Editor
  * Corrections

Get Involved

  * Support Public Radio
  * Sponsor NPR
  * NPR Careers
  * NPR Shop
  * NPR Events
  * NPR Extra

  * Terms of Use
  * Privacy
  * Your Privacy Choices
  * Text Only
  * 

Sponsor Message

Become an NPR sponsor