GBH (WGBH Educational Foundation) and New England Public Media plan to formally merge operations by the summer of 2026, a move leaders say will expand statewide journalism, streamline back-office functions and strengthen local public media at a time of growing financial pressure across the industry.
The merger will combine Boston-based GBH, Springfield-based NEPM and Cape Cod’s CAI into what executives describe as one of Massachusetts’ largest statewide public media networks, reaching more than 1.3 million people weekly while preserving the separate GBH and NEPM brands, headquarters and signature programming.
GBH operates WGBH (89.7) and WCRB (99.5) in Boston, and WCAI (90.1), WNAN (91.1), and WZAI (94.3) in Cape Cod. NEPM radio assets include WFCR (88.5) and WNNZ-AM (640) in Springfield, MA, along with WNNI Adams (98.9), WNNU Great Barrington (89.5), and WNNZ-FM Deerfield (91.7).
GBH President and CEO Susan Goldberg said the consolidation is designed to protect local journalism as public media organizations nationwide face mounting challenges, including significant cuts in federal support.
“This is all about preserving local news,” Goldberg said. “At a time when local news is endangered coast to coast, at a time when more than $1.1 billion has been taken away from local public media, what we’re doing by this is figuring out: How do we be as efficient as we can to make sure we preserve the most important things … we do? And local news, in terms of a forward-facing operation, is one of the most important things we do.”
Goldberg said the merger will broaden the reach of western Massachusetts reporting.
“This is about, how do we make sure those great stories in western Massachusetts have more scale and have more audience and can be seen by more people across the state?” Goldberg added. “The same is true with WCAI.”
NEPM was formed in 2019 through a partnership involving GBH-owned television station WGBY, New England Public Radio’s WFCR and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Although GBH technically owned NEPM from its inception, the organization operated as a separate nonprofit with its own fiduciary board while GBH handled some finance and human resources operations.
Under the new structure, those operational distinctions will largely disappear, with leaders emphasizing efficiencies in sponsorship, administration and content sharing. The organizations say the merger will create stronger reporting capacity from Boston to western Massachusetts and Cape Cod without eliminating regional identities.
The announcement follows broader conversations about consolidation in public broadcasting after federal funding reductions intensified scrutiny of sustainability models for nonprofit media organizations. For GBH, one of the nation’s largest public broadcasters, the NEPM merger marks a significant step toward statewide integration as the sector adapts to economic and political uncertainty.
