New England Public Media has announced that it will merge with Boston-based GBH, forming a statewide public media organization in Massachusetts that is expected to reach more than 1.3 million people a week.
The merger, which will be finalized this summer, comes after seven years of collaboration between the two public media groups.
New England Public Media is based in Springfield, Mass., and station leaders said the organization will retain its brand, studios and programs.
“We’re in this community, and we are looking at ways that we can be on the ground. And it’s important for us not to have that just disappear as we consolidate back-end functions,” NEPM president Matt Abramovitz said in a press release. “The trust we have built over the years is with NEPM, and we want to maintain that.”
New England Public Media has 44 employees, while GBH, which produces national programming for both its television and radio stations, has 705.
Abramovitz will remain president of NEPM and will also become vice president of audience strategy and operations at GBH.
“Because we are going to be intentionally working together, with meetings at all levels across all departments across the state, we will find ways of having greater impact across Massachusetts,” Abramovitz said in the release. “And I think in a time when everyone feels disconnected from their neighborhood — we’re in kind of a really lonely moment — the opportunity for public media is to use our local power and make us feel more connected across the commonwealth.”
The NEPM audience will continue to access programming through the station's website, and local programming will remain on the air at 88.5 FM. Station officials say NEPM journalists will remain focused on hyper-local coverage.
The boards of both NEPM and GBH have approved the merger. The transfer of NEPM broadcast licenses to GBH is pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission.
GBH President and CEO Susan Goldberg said the merger will not result in any immediate staff reductions, and that she hopes it leads to the creation of new positions over time.
She said the merger is expected to benefit both organizations through a statewide sponsorship program and growing content collaborations.
“By scaling our journalism while maintaining our focus on local coverage, we become a more sustainable business operation even in the face of federal defunding, ensuring that every resident of the Commonwealth has access to fact-based reporting and stories that matter,” Goldberg said in a press release. “This is all about preserving local news.”
GBH reporter Adam Reilly contributed to this story. This story was written and edited independently from NEPM's editorial team.
