Boston Radio: WBUR Offering Buyouts To Staffers

Non-Com WBUR is offering buyouts to employees in an effort to cut roughly 10 percent of its budget, the station’s head told staff on Tuesday.

The Boston Globe reports Margaret Low, the station’s chief executive, wrote to employees that WBUR hopes the plan will help reduce some expenses, but added that the station expects to still cut more jobs or freeze hiring. Anyone hired at least three months ago can take the buyout, she said. She did not say how many employees the organization was hoping to buy out of their jobs.

“While we wish this voluntary program would alleviate the need for other actions, we know that it won’t,” Low wrote in the message, which was published on WBUR’s website. “We anticipate that we’ll still need to freeze some open roles and do layoffs, but we’re hoping to eliminate as few jobs as possible.”

The buyout plan comes weeks after Low told donors that the station had seen “a dramatic loss of sponsorship support” and that the station wouldn’t rule out a hiring freeze or layoffs to help cut costs. Low previously said in an interview with the Globe that on-air sponsorship revenue had fallen 40 percent over the past five years.

Employees who accept the buyout plan will receive four weeks’ pay in addition to one week of pay for each year worked at WBUR or Boston University, which owns WBUR’s broadcast license, as well as continued health benefits through the same period. WBUR will also pay out accrued vacation to employees who take the plan. The last day of work for employees who accept will be May 10.

WBUR needs to start its next fiscal year — which begins July 1 — with a budget at least $4 million lower than the current fiscal year’s $45 million budget, Low wrote.

The financial challenges at WBUR, found at 90.9 on FM radio, reflect a broader decline in advertising revenue across the media industry. In the note to staff earlier this month announcing the financial challenges, Low wrote that the decline in on-air sponsorship revenue came as the station’s “listening audience is growing steadily” and its “digital numbers are on the rise.”