Despite layoffs and an ownership transfer, NSPR remains hopeful for sustainability
The public radio station’s employees were given layoff notices late last month, resulting from an ownership transfer from CapRadio to Chico State. But the job positions will remain in operation, and the change may even increase funding as some public stations nationwide face cuts.
North State Public Radio is facing big changes in the coming weeks.
The NPR member station’s employees were given layoff notices in late September, a byproduct of the station’s ownership transfer from CapRadio to Chico State.
CapRadio is an NPR station that’s an auxiliary of Sacramento State, serving Northern California. Late last year, CapRadio filed a lawsuit against the station’s former general manager, accusing him of embezzling $900,000 from its funding. In July, the station approved the transfer of its ownership of NSPR to Chico State due to financial problems.
Chico State Enterprises (CSE), the non-profit that raises funds for the university, will take over the station on Dec. 1.
NSPR staff layoffs will be effective at the end of November. Listings for every existing job at the station were posted by CSE, along with the addition of a new general manager role. The deadline to apply was Oct. 12. Employees were encouraged to reapply, but the positions aren’t guaranteed to current staff. NSPR’s article on the transition explained that the layoff notices from CapRadio came as a surprise to many of its employees.
Chico State emphasized that the move could bring more funding to the station because of the university’s resources, which could create long-term sustainability for the station.
“Bringing the station back home to Chico State management gives us increased flexibility to operate sustainably and to find new funding opportunities, through fundraising, underwriting, and collaboration with academic departments at Chico State,” Chico State spokesperson Ashley Gebb said in an email statement. “We are committed to uninterrupted service, preserving editorial independence, and the same trusted delivery of essential news, emergency information, and in-depth storytelling that these stations have provided to the North State for decades.”
The change comes as local public media stations across the country grapple with federal funding cuts to NPR and PBS in the wake of a congressional vote to eliminate government funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Gebb said NSPR has already been operating without federal funding, so it hasn’t been impacted by the cuts.
Local PBS-affiliated station KIXE is among the hardest hit by the federal funding cuts — as Shasta Scout reported in July, the television station used to receive about 40% of its total budget from federal funding. That would have amounted to about $800,000 over the next couple of years, placing KIXE in the top 30 most federally dependent public broadcasting stations in the country. In August, KIXE laid off one part-time employee and decided not to fill four other positions.
10.18.2025 8:52 pm: We have corrected information related to CapRadio’s ownership.
Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.
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Taxpayers are not responsible to fund the news media. Only the free enterprise News media and their private funding can do that. If a news media company has a great business model and is fair and balanced, they will succeed.
Thank you Madison for this sad article. What is happening to public broadcasting amounts to part of a far-right Trumpest attack on the media. Extremism is just another example as to why Proposition 50 should be voted in to help level the playing field and to help fend off these types of actions under the Big Ugly Bill passed by Trump’s cadre of cult members in Congress who have been gerrymandered into power. Interesting to note that when broadcast license became available in the United States, it was under the expectation of a fairness doctrine and understanding that the public, not corporations, actually owned the airways and the people owned the power for licensing. This is no longer the case. The Public Broadcast System is world renowned for its work. And it is also hated by MAGA, and just like Obamacare it has been cut or gutted to pay for massive tax cuts to the billionaires. What a sad day.