Public media outlet WHYY plans to move to new offices in downtown Wilmington.
Spokesman Art Ellis said the new location is at 605 N. Market Street at the edge of the increasingly popular LOMA area of downtown Wilmington. The move is slated for mid-May.
The new space will have offices for the Delaware-based news staff and a radio recording studio.
Ellis said the Market Street location will offer WHYY “a more visible and centrally-located facility.”
The nonprofit sold its portion of a condo building at Sixth and Orange streets in 2017 and had moved into smaller quarters at the site. The Sixth and Orange building is in an area of downtown that has not seen the surge of redevelopment that has come to Market Street.
Gone from the WHYY footprint is the broadcast studio that over the years served as a remote location for interviews with political figures including U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, who went on to become Vice President and is now making a third bid to run for President.
Short Order Production House acquired the studio, which does see usage from political figures and others in need of a studio.
WHYY’s television activities in Delaware now come from remotes that are fed to its Philadelphia studios.
WHYY pulled the plug on its nightly television newscast for Delaware about a decade ago and about nine months ago, discontinued a weekly Delaware news magazine known as First. The end of Delaware Tonight brought an outcry at the time from both Delaware U.S. senators.
Ellis said WHYY now offers a news show known as You Oughta Know, which covers the whole region and always includes Delaware stories, Ellis stated. Shirley Min, one of the anchors of First, is the co-host of the new show.
WHYY has continued to work on its digital presence. It recently acquired the BillyPenn site in Philadelphia. The site is aimed at millennials who access their news via mobile device. It is also a partner in State Impact, a site that monitors the growth in natural gas production and distribution.
WHYY earlier acquired public radio frequencies in New Jersey after state funding ended.
Discontinued and brought into its daily operations was NewsWorks, a hyperlocal news operation that covered news in Philadelphia neighborhoods and Delaware. The network included broadcast and free-lance contributions.
WHYY covers one of the largest public radio and TV markets in the U.S. and acquired its television frequency when a Delaware TV station went off the air decades ago.
(Doug Rainey, the author of this post, was a contributor of business news content for Delaware Tonight).
