KPBS GM KARLO TO RETIRE DEC. 30
Former SDSU student spent 47 years working at the public station
Tom Karlo, who started working at San Diego’s public broadcasting station, KPBS, as a college student in 1973 and rose through the ranks to become general manager during a period of seismic change in the media world, announced his retirement Monday.
He will leave Dec. 30 after 47 years with the nonprofit outlet, the last 11 as general manager.
“I’ve been thinking about retirement for a while,” Karlo, 67, said in a phone interview. “This is an opportune time.”
During his tenure, the station shifted from being known predominantly as a National Public Radio affiliate focused on social issues and analysis into a multiplatform news operation, with stories also appearing on television, the Internet and social media.
“There was a dramatic change in the way the public was consuming media,” he said. “Traditional media was losing audience, and we had to adapt. I’m really proud of how the staff embraced that.”
According to Karlo’s biography on the KPBS website, it is the highest-rated public television station in the country. More than 1.2 mil
lion people watch, listen, click or stream its content every week. The newsroom grew from 17 people in 2009, when Karlo took over as GM, to more than 40 today.
His staff also won numerous local, regional and national journalism awards, including several for its coverage of the border and of the sexual harassment scandal that drove San Diego Mayor Bob Filner from office.
“I think Tom Karlo really established KPBS as a stable and thorough news site,” said Dean Nelson, director of the journalism program
at Point Loma Nazarene University. “That’s what I pay the most attention to, the news coverage, and it’s only gotten better under his leadership.”
Karlo’s final year has been a rough one because of COVID-19related declines in revenue from sponsorships, donations and memberships. In June, the station laid off or significantly trimmed the work hours of 18 employees. Karlo said then that the station expected to report a six-figure loss this year.
The cutbacks created tension in the newsroom, which voted seven years ago to join a union, SAGAFTRA, in response to pay and workload concerns. Union members said their offers to participate in worksharing, buyouts and other alternatives to the cutbacks were disregarded.
Employees also criticized the cuts because they came as the station was raising almost $40 million to renovate and expand its broadcasting facilities at San Diego State University. Karlo said the capital campaign is separate from the station’s operating budget, with donations earmarked for the remodeling.
The capital campaign is why he didn’t retire two
years ago, when he was contemplating it, Karlo said. “I wanted to complete that part of the project to help the future leaders of this organization be better positioned to keep moving forward.”
Construction is scheduled to begin this month.
In a statement Monday, Karlo’s boss, SDSU President Adela de la Torre, praised him for “years of service to meaningful storytelling and to ethical journalism” and said he has “invested decades to elevate KPBS as an important community-focused ambassador for public media in the San Diego region.”
She announced that Nancy Worlie, associate general manager for content and communications, will take over as interim general manager on Jan. 1. She has been at KPBS for 17 years.
Karlo was a student at SDSU, studying film and television, when he started as a part-time assistant at the station in 1973. That was 13 years after the station was founded as KEBS, and just one year after the TV side had broadcast for the first time in color.
He held a number of jobs over the years — assistant cameraman, director, producer — and won three local Emmy Awards before moving into management. He spent his entire career at KPBS.
In a memo to his staff Monday, he said, “While the pandemic has changed the world we live in, making the past seven months challenging, I am confident KPBS will continue to grow, prosper and serve the community.”