By Beth Treffeisen
Boston public TV and radio organization GBH announced Friday that it would lay off about 10 employees from its WORLD Channel as it reshapes the network’s programming strategy.
GBH President and CEO Susan Goldberg said in a statement that the WORLD will move away from original documentaries while continuing to offer a home for exclusive series like “Stories from the Stage,” “Bloomberg’s Wall Street Week,” “North South East West,” and “A French Village.”
The WORLD will also continue to offer five hours of daily international newscasts from the BBC, Deutsche Welle, France 24, and NHK Japan.
Goldberg said the changes will become effective July 1, when the licensing term ends for PBS member stations that subscribe to the service.
Goldberg said the new approach “is more financially sustainable in the current environment.”
“We’re grateful to our station partners and talented producer-directors for telling important stories and thankful to our audiences for tuning in,” Goldberg said in a statement.
GBH reported that Goldberg said that the format changes and layoffs are not a product of “the current federal funding fight.”
President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease funding PBS and NPR immediately. The White House said it would ask Congress to take back the money already allocated to the corporation for the next two years.
Goldberg told GBH the decision to cut costs came beforehand, as station fees and philanthropic contributions became insufficient to sustain the channel. She said CPB funding covers half the WORLD’s cost.
The station’s cuts came a year after the public media organization announced layoffs of 31 staff members, representing a 4% cut in the workforce.
Zoe Mathews, a steward for the union representing some of the WORLD workers, criticized the recent cuts.
In a statement to GBH, Mathews said, “The WORLD Channel is staffed by a team of award-winning documentarians who humanize complex issues through the work they do, often facilitating first-time filmmakers and storytellers from historically underrepresented communities.”
She continued, “To eliminate these journalists in this moment, in the way GBH has moved to do, is a betrayal of the very mission of GBH.”
Beth Treffeisen is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on local news, crime, and business in the New England region.
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