In 2019, the Boston-based public-broadcasting behemoth GBH made a big announcement: it was partnering with the western Massachusetts NPR affiliate New England Public Radio to form a new organization, New England Public Media.
At the time, amid concerns over editorial autonomy, both stations promised that NEPM would function as an “independently run organization.” That, however, is no longer the case.
Earlier this month, the two organizations announced that they will fully merge this summer, bringing the Springfield-based public media outlet under direct control of GBH — a major distributor of PBS programs nationwide. But what it means for western Massachusetts’ media landscape, however, is still uncertain.
The announcement comes after the 2025 congressional rescission of $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which had provided about 3.7% and 3.4% of operating revenue and other support for GBH and NEPM, respectively, in fiscal year 2024, according to GBH’s financial statements. GBH and NEPM presidents Susan Goldberg and Matt Abramovitz have said that the merger will allow for greater efficiency in the face of cuts while giving NEPM stories a more statewide audience.
For some, though, the merger brings back to the fore unresolved questions from 2019.
“To folks cheering the move as an example of creative thinking at a scary moment for public media, maybe you’re right. But there are risks, and it’s not new,” Sam Hudzik, NEPM’s news director from 2013 to 2025, said in an email to The Shoestring. “This is the inevitable conclusion of former NEPM leaders’ decision to hand over a lot of control to GBH back in 2019. We warned about loss of local autonomy and were promised that NEPM remained independent. That pretense was nonsense then and it’s gone now.”
The 2019 partnership came about as a result of the joining of New England Public Radio and the GBH-owned TV station WGBY — western Massachusetts’ PBS affiliate. While creating NEPM as a mostly independent organization, it gave GBH considerable influence over the organization, including veto power over big decisions like mergers, board nominees, bylaw amendments, annual budget decisions, and the hiring or firing of NEPM’s president, according to a term sheet the organizations filed that year with the Federal Communications Commission.
The partnership also came at the expense of the radio station’s staff union.
Previously, workers at NEPR were unionized employees of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the station’s licensee. However, under the new arrangement, future hires at NEPM would not be represented by the UMass Professional Staff Union. What has resulted is a staff that is now split between legacy union members who are still technically UMass employees and non-union staffers who were hired after 2019.
Since 2019, both NEPM and GBH have faced funding difficulties that the organizations addressed partially through layoffs, including prior to the federal defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In 2023, NEPM laid off 17 people, or 20% of its staff. The following year, GBH laid off 30 workers — 4% of its workforce.
Meanwhile, executive compensation only increased from 2023 to 2024.
In fiscal year 2023, GBH’s 10 highest-compensated employees — all executive-level positions — were making a combined $4.8 million in total compensation, according to tax filings. In 2024, it reached $5.6 million. Goldberg alone pulled in $757,264 in total compensation that year, which led some employees to question why the organization didn’t cut executive compensation to prevent layoffs.
Staff cuts continued into 2025, with GBH laying off 87 employees.
Asked whether GBH had considered curtailing executive compensation to prevent layoffs, a GBH spokesperson told The Shoestring in an email that “we have explored and undertaken several cost-saving measures over the years to ensure our business model is as sustainable as possible, while still investing in staffing and programming to meet our mission and our strategy.”
Since the 2019 partnership, GBH has already been running NEPM’s human resources and finance operations, according to a GBH article about the upcoming merger. GBH was also providing some funding directly to NEPM, which received $2.8 million in equity transfers from GBH in 2025.
Asked why they’re pursuing a complete merger now, GBH and NEPM spokespeople told The Shoestring in an email that after the federal defunding of public media, the organizations are “looking for new ways to create a stronger, more sustainable future.” And while there has been “elevated levels of support from our donors and audiences in the wake of the rescission of federal funding,” the spokespeople said that the organizations ultimately “will be stronger together.”
That “more sustainable future” will include, the organizations have said, certain “efficiencies” resulting from the merger.
GBH said in its press release that “there are no immediate plans for staff reductions as a result of the merger.” Asked directly whether the merger would help halt the recent layoff trend, GBH and NEPM said only that “sharing resources and generating more operational efficiencies between GBH and NEPM will allow both of us to invest in our journalism and growing audience.”
While a portion of NEPM employees remain represented by the UMass Professional Staff Union, GBH has a history of aggressive tactics toward its own unionized employees, cutting off negotiations and imposing a contract on 280 unionized workers in 2011.
Representatives from the Professional Staff Union and the GBH staff union, Andrew Gorry and Gregg Irving, did not respond to interview requests.
Though the merger will maintain NEPM as its own brand, GBH and NEPM spokespeople mentioned “sponsorship and content collaborations that would not be possible if the two organizations remained separate entities.” The GBH article on the merger also mentions savings from the organizations filing taxes and being audited as one entity, while their press release highlights “efficiencies through combined back office operations, such as a statewide sponsorship program” and “growing content collaborations.”
On the editorial side, the merger will have the NEPM newsroom now reporting to the GBH editor-in-chief, though “NEPM will maintain local newsroom leadership with greenlight authority over local stories, framing, and priorities,” according to the organizations’ statement.
Hudzik, the former news director, notes that after the 2019 partnership, he “never reported to anyone at GBH, but they did influence editorial decisions.”
“We did our best to push back when appropriate, collaborate when appropriate, and make sure what we were producing always told important stories relevant to our western Mass. neighbors,” Hudzik wrote.
Much of the communication from Abramovitz, Goldberg, and GBH/NEPM spokespeople emphasizes “scaling our audience,” in the form of “more statewide programming and events,” as the GBH press release puts it. Asked whether this means a greater shift from local to statewide coverage for the NEPM newsroom, an NEPM spokesperson told The Shoestring in an email that “our signature programs and local focus will continue. And we plan to collaborate on more statewide news coverage.”
Hudzik said that despite GBH’s influence, he hopes its leaders will trust the local NEPM team to decide how best to cover news in western Massachusetts.
“Same goes for NEPM’s local events and local music programs,” Hudzik said. “We should have our own public radio and TV stations here — not just a repeater of what’s playing in Boston. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
While the merger application is still awaiting FCC consent, the organizations expect the deal to be completed this summer.