To finalize transfer of LNP Media Group, Pennon will pay $2.3M for lease termination, other costs

• By Chad Umble / LNP | LancasterOnline

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that LNP | LancasterOnline will be transferred to the nonprofit Always Lancaster, while Pennon will retain and wind down the for-profit entity LNP Media Group.

Pennon, the owner of LNP Media Group, will pay $2.3 million as part of the transfer of the media company to Always Lancaster, a newly formed nonprofit headed by former NPR journalist David Greene.

On Tuesday, Pennon’s board of directors approved the extra spending for LNP as part of a $14.5 million budget for Pennon, whose other property is public broadcaster WITF. The budget, which runs through June 2026 and doesn’t include LNP, maintains programming levels at WITF but dips into an endowment fund to cover a projected deficit of $874,000 for the year.

The $2.3 million for LNP wind-down costs would also come from a part of Pennon’s endowment that was created with the $25 million it netted from the 2017 sale of part of its broadcast spectrum.

“LNP is part of Pennon,” Pennon board President Leigh Horner said during the meeting. “We have been the owners of the LNP asset for the last couple years in furtherance of the overall mission of public media and education. And the desire is that we want to make sure that local journalism is healthy in our region.”

Pennon plans to transfer LNP | LancasterOnline to the nonprofit Always Lancaster but will retain – and then pay to wind down – the for-profit entity LNP Media Group.

In a presentation to the board, the $2.3 million was described as being for “wind-down costs inclusive of lease termination, transition and contingency related items.”

In October, LNP Media Group left its offices at 101 N. Queen St. where it was paying roughly $1 million a year and had another 12 and a half years left on a lease. Horner declined to answer a question from an LNP | LancasterOnline reporter about how much of the $2.3 million that Pennon will pay will be used for the lease termination and whether that amount would satisfy the lease.

Horner told board members that some aspects of the agreement that they formally ratified Tuesday still need to be finalized.

The transfer of LNP | LancasterOnline and related assets, which is expected to close by the end of December, is meant to add new philanthropic support to LNP’s flagging finances. For the four months ending in October, LNP had an operating deficit of $1.4 million, according to a presentation at the Pennon board meeting.

Greene, who did not attend the Pennon board meeting, told LNP | LancasterOnline beforehand that details regarding the lease at 101 N. Queen and other liabilities are still being worked out.

“There’s a lot of excitement around this transition as it’s a significant step for LNP | LancasterOnline, and we’re focused on getting the details right,” he wrote in an email to LNP | LancasterOnline. “We know the community is eager for specifics, and we’ll keep everyone in the loop as things progress.”

So far, Greene said, three people – Miguel Nistal, Susan Eckert and Steve Falk – have agreed to join the board of Always Lancaster. More people will be added to the board, whose size hasn’t been determined, Greene said.

Greene was previously on the board of LNP Media Group as well as the Steinman Institute for Civic Engagement, a nonprofit formerly under Pennon which supported the work of LNP. He stepped down from both board roles over the summer as he worked to finalize plans for Always Lancaster to become the owner of LNP | LancasterOnline.

Greene, a Harvard University graduate, now lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Rose Previte, who owns three Washington D.C.-area restaurants as well as a wine company.

A day after the Dec. 1 announcement of the planned transfer of LNP to Always Lancaster, Greene and Horner discussed the change with employees at LNP’s former offices at 101 N. Queen St.

“I’m looking at people who are relying on me to sort of set the vision, to lead, but also relying on me for 401(k)s, health insurance,” Greene said in a Dec. 4 interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered” recalling that all-staff meeting. “And so, you know, I was trying to give a message of, you know, reassuring that nothing is going to change immediately and hope that they were ready to invest in this new nonprofit model and mission.”

The NPR interview was a reunion of sorts for Greene who co-hosted NPR’s Morning Edition for nearly a decade. In the interview, Greene recounted his roots in Lancaster where he graduated from McCaskey High School and was an intern at The Sunday News, an LNP forerunner.

“I care deeply about this paper and this community,” Greene said. “The idea of LNP going bankrupt, to me, was just something I could not accept.”

So far, three people have been named to Always Lancaster’s board of directors. They are:

— Steve Falk is a native of Lancaster and a graduate of Elizabethtown College who began his newspaper career as an assistant to the editor of the Intelligencer Journal, an LNP forerunner. Falk retired in 2023 as CEO of Sonoma Media Investments, a California-based company that was sold in May to Alden Capital Group. Falk has also previously been president and CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and has served as president and publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner. He serves on the board of managers for the Lancaster County Local Journalism Fund, which was established by the Steinman Foundation in 2020. Falk lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

— Miguel Nistal is CEO of Alphia Corporation, which makes pet food for a variety of brands. Nistal, who lives in Manheim Township, is the former CEO of Lititz-based Woodstream Corporation and is also on the board of directors of the Steinman Foundation.

— Susan Eckert of Manheim Township spent 25 years as president of the United Way of Lancaster County, retiring in 2012. Her consulting practice, The Eckert Group, works to improve public health infrastructure in Lancaster County. She is a former WITF board member and currently serves as chair of the board of managers for the Lancaster County Local Journalism Fund.