WESA’s flagship daily morning news show “The Confluence” will end next week, according to a statement from the station’s management.

Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting President and CEO Terry O’Reilly announced Friday that the show would air for the last time Aug. 4. PCBC owns WESA-FM, the local NPR affiliate, and WYEP.

In an email to members, he noted “hard choices must be made” amid financial challenges at the station.

O’Reilly said Confluence team members Kevin Gavin, Marylee Williams and Laura Tsutsui will leave the station and are being provided severance negotiated through the union. Nick Wright, a digital content manager for sister station WYEP, also will be leaving.

“We are proud of the journalism that ‘The Confluence’ team has produced and the service they have provided to our community, and we are grateful for having had the opportunity to have worked with Kevin, Marylee, Laura and Nick as colleagues and friends,” O’Reilly said. “We believe this will be the only change in our programming that will be needed, as we reset our cost structure to better align with our revenues.”

There'll be time later for other stages of grief. Right now I just want to say that @KevinOGavinPgh and producers @LauraTsutsui and @marylee_will are among the most talented, hardworking and best people I've ever been lucky enough to work with. They made this a better place.

— Chris Potter (@CPotterPgh) July 28, 2023

The show started on the air as a weekly program in 2016, as a successor to a previous program, “Essential Pittsburgh.” It became a daily news program in 2018.

Gavin confirmed the announcement during Friday’s show.

“After a seven-year run, WESA will end production of the Confluence next Friday, Aug. 4,” Gavin said on air. “We hope you’ve enjoyed listening to the program and tune in next week for our final shows.”

Producer Laura Tsutsui confirmed on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that the cancellation marked the end of her time at the station.

WESA is ending production of The Confluence next Friday, Aug. 4, which means my time at the station is also coming to an end. We'll have more to come next week, stay tuned.

— Laura Tsutsui she/her (@LauraTsutsui) July 28, 2023

Workers at WYEP and WESA voted 26-1 to unionize with SAG-AFTRA in 2022.

Earlier in the summer, two WESA reporters took buyouts, following another announcement from O’Reilly citing high costs at the station and across NPR, including utility costs and cost of national NPR programming.

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