Lehigh Valley Public Media

Lehigh Valley Public Media

Lehigh Valley Public Telecommunications Corporation was founded in 1965 and operates as Lehigh Valley Public Media, a community-licensed nonprofit serving the Lehigh Valley from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The organization is the regional outlet for PBS and NPR programming, distributing public television, original local journalism, and public radio. Its station portfolio comprises PBS39/WLVT, Philadelphia-licensed WPPT, and NPR-affiliated WLVR-FM. The enterprise is structured as a local media asset owner rather than a conventional grantmaking foundation. Programming spans public affairs, arts, education, and digital news through its membership in the Institute for Nonprofit News, exceeding the typical broadcaster remit. The organization occupies the Univest Public Media Center on the SteelStacks campus, a former Bethlehem Steel site redeveloped into a cultural district, with an adjacent transmitter site on South Mountain in Allentown. Key institutional relationships include a station-operating partnership with Lehigh University for WLVR-FM and a multi-year naming rights agreement with Univest Financial Corporation. Operational scale is reflected in physical infrastructure rather than disclosed AUM: the SteelStacks headquarters, the Allentown transmitter, and the Lehigh Valley Public Media Trust Fund. The organization maintains a Leadership Society philanthropy arm and complies with Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding requirements. In the last 24 months, it has continued operating from the ArtsQuest-adjacent campus, regularly collaborating on community events. The organization's structural differentiator is its hybrid identity as a public broadcaster with an explicit local journalism remit. Unlike most PBS affiliates, it couples federal CPB funding with a dedicated newsroom model and an endowed media trust, creating a self-sustaining local public media platform distinct from either commercial stations or purely philanthropic foundations.