Marketplace is meeting the moment. Join us.

Marketplace is at a crossroads. Public media is at a crossroads.  

There has rarely been an opportunity for our trusted voices to be more essential for Americans seeking answers than in this moment of tremendous change. We are here for it. But our business model is under siege on multiple fronts, each challenging our strategies to cultivate enough revenue to expand our impact. 

Some members of our team recently shared around some key takeaways from the Jacobs Media Techsurvey 2025. It reinforced what we already knew about declines in broadcast reach and shifting media consumption. The respondents' average age continues to grow—it’s currently at 58—indicating that listeners aren't getting younger. This year, 11 percent of the respondents said they’re listening to less radio, and digital consumption continues to grow; it’s more than doubled since 2013. 

We’re also all very aware of waning state and federal funding and a softening underwriting market. 

While it’s easy to get wrapped up in the disruptive external forces, we must acknowledge that many of our internal shortcomings also have been barriers to the sustainable future we seek. 

Are we future-ready? 

At Marketplace, we’re acknowledging that we can’t create the future of public media if our organization is not built for the future and its challenges. Change isn’t easy, but to realize our ambition and fulfill our mission, change is imperative. And we know that Marketplace is not alone.  

Public media must fight through the challenges we are facing. It is not time for public media to fall on its sword; it is time to raise it and cut a new path forward.  

The path:  

-          Be not afraid.  

-          Traffic in truth.  

-          Serve your communities.  

-          Deepen the relationships you have forged with those communities.  

This moment gives public media a clear opportunity to empower Americans. Marketplace has an opportunity to cut through the noise and provide meaningful clarity on the economic questions at the center of much of today’s news cycle.   

We are built for this moment, but are we built for the future?  

Right now, we are not.  

Our path forward will require many things, but chief among them: We must be nimble enough to create better outcomes for our audience, for our partners and for all communities.  

At Marketplace, we’re making moves to be more agile so we can continue to deliver powerful public service journalism free of paywalls to every single American, regardless of their demographics, their political persuasion, or their ability to pay.   

This is not political. (The most recent survey of Marketplace’s audience reveals that 30 percent identify as conservative, 30 percent as liberal and 30 percent undecided.) We are here to help and inform, not to persuade. 

Do we have a bias? Yes. It is for the people—all the people. And, as we all know, many of those people are listening less to broadcast radio.  

What we’re changing 

Our mission at Marketplace is to raise the economic intelligence of the country. It’s clear to us that the stories of our time are economic stories.  

It’s also clear that if we do not meet curious Americans where they are, we cannot create the impact that mission prescribes. 

That is why we are announcing several changes designed to make Marketplace an essential, multichannel resource well into the future.  

Our investments: 

• Content, with several new roles and workflows to usher in our digital transformation  

• A newly refreshed website with improved UX to serve as the hub of our voice and mission 

• And – through our parent company, American Public Media (APM) – in the quality of data and engagement we can provide to our underwriters and sponsors.  

We also are making changes that will result in efficiencies: 

• This week, Marketplace has made the difficult decision to eliminate seven roles 

• We will be moving from our downtown LA headquarters to Pasadena to share space with our sister station in the APMG family, LAist 

These changes coincide with major changes to our organizational structure designed to better unify our broadcast and digital storytelling to create even more meaningful ways to engage Americans about the economy. We are making major shifts in how we operate, all to drive audience, impact and revenue: 

• Aligning our content operations and programming priorities to meet new audiences where they are. Radio remains our core; digital is our path to wider impact. We now function as one newsroom.  

• Doubling down on our partnerships with the local, community-based public media stations that are essential to delivering on our mission. Because it’s not just local broadcasts that matter for Marketplace. It’s the partnerships with local stations and their communities.   

• Putting increased focus on programming our social channels, website, newsletters, podcast feeds and video.  

• Focusing our content strategies around areas that we know our audiences and potential audiences want and need, such as financial literacy, sustainability, entrepreneurship, the new workplace and this economy. 

• Stepping up collaboration with external partners and potential sponsors who share our mission and help drive our impact – we cannot do this work alone.  

• Streamlining our production management and workflows so your favorite content goes where you go.  

My challenge to you: Join us  

These moves sound as much like catching up as they do charting a dynamic path to the future. For Marketplace and our peers in public media, it is both. To continue serving the public, we need to thrive where it does.  

The future of public media will be different than some of us imagined, but I urge you to join us in being unafraid to make the changes we need to seize our future.  

Raise your swords. Fight for your communities. Change the game. 

Neal Scarbrough

General Manager, Marketplace