There appear to be no immediate prospects for the revival of Peoria magazine under new ownership.
WTVP board chairman John Wieland said he recently met with a group of community stakeholders about the magazine's future.
"I made it clear that this isn't a WTVP problem. It's our community, and the community needs to figure out the magazine, and nobody raised their hand and said we want it. Okay, which was disappointing to see," he said.
Interim station manager Julie Sanders said the stakeholders agreed the magazine was a good product, and the associated events like 40 Leaders under Forty were well-regarded.
"They all liked the magazine and how it was a vehicle for their particular group. They miss it. But no one raised their hand to say I want to take on that responsibility or pony up money. So I think that's where we are right now," she said.
Peoria magazine was purchased from Central Illinois Business Publishers for $100,000 in 2021. WTVP indefinitely suspended the magazine's publication after last November's issue as part of a broader set of cost-cutting measures.
Vice chairman Dr. Andy Chiou said the station will likely skip a year of both magazine production and related events while reorganizing the station and rethinking how to move the publication forward. The station plans to select a new CEO next week.
It was noted that WTVP purchased rights to the magazine's events separately from the publication itself. It would potenially be possible for WTVP to resume events like 40 Leaders Under Forty and associated special issues without reviving the monthly publication.
The magazine's costs contributed heavily to the public television station's $870,000 operational deficit last fiscal year. Board treasurer Helen Barrick said the magazine would have to be run "very differently" to make sense financially in the future.
"Whether it gets split up, or it ends up still being under the umbrella of what we do, we want to make sure that they whatever happens in the future is going to be not the red minus 800,000 that happened in the past," Chiou said.
