PRI trims staff by three, reassigns others

Public Radio International laid off three employees, dropped two vacant positions and reassigned about 10 of its 55-member staff in a restructuring that took effect Monday. The restructuring aims to raise resources needed to strengthen programming and marketing within the tightened budget of the Minneapolis-based program distributor/producer, says Julia Yager, v.p. of brand management and marketing strategy. PRI has "aggressively" watched costs and expects only a "very slight" operating loss this fiscal year, she says. The three lost positions were spread among the marketing , communications and programming units. One of PRI's major initiatives, The Takeaway morning news program coproduced with WNYC, has just passed its first year on the air and is now heard on 36 main-channel pubradio stations (plus five HD Radio multicast channels), she said. Major cities reached include New York (WNYC), Boston (WGBH), Detroit (WDET), Atlanta (WCLK) and Seattle (KXOT, an affiliate of KUOW). [Corrected from an earlier version.]