Public Media
WUWF Loses Its Leader—Is NPR Next on the Chopping Block?
David Brinkley is headed to Ohio after barely a year at WUWF. The same UWF Board of Trustees that watched sister institution Pensacola State cut ties with PBS now controls Pensacola’s only NPR station. And a Fourth of July weekend Threads post revealed how WSRE viewers will finally get PBS programming back.
WUWF, the listener-supported public radio station licensed to the Board of Trustees of the University of West Florida, has lost its executive director. David Brinkley resigned effective June 30, ending a tenure that began in March 2025 when he replaced Pat Crawford, who had led the station for 42 years.
Brinkley came to WUWF from Western Kentucky University, where he had spent more than a decade as executive director of public media and general manager of the WKU Public Radio network. He has now joined his wife, Jennifer, in Dayton, Ohio. Jennifer also left UWF, where she was an assistant professor of legal studies. She is now on the faculty of the University of Dayton School of Law.
That is a fast exit for a hire that was supposed to bring stability to the station following Crawford’s long run.
- The bigger question: Will UWF President Manny Diaz Jr. and the Board of Trustees use this vacancy to make a move against WUWF’s National Public Radio affiliation?
Remember What Happened at WSRE
Northwest Florida has already watched this play out once. Last September, the Pensacola State College District Board of Trustees voted to end WSRE’s 53-year affiliation with PBS and to decertify the WSRE Foundation’s relationship with the college — the television station that had served the region since 1972.
The lone vote against the change was Vice Chair Andy Hobbs, an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy, whom the governor’s office subsequently chose not to reappoint to the board.
“When I grew up, I didn’t have cable, I didn’t have a satellite. We had Channel 3, and we had PBS. I grew up with Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, and similar shows. And I said, ‘I think I turned out pretty okay.'”
Hobbs had pointed to WSRE’s fundraising success as reason to give the station more time. He noted the station had raised $300,000 in a single month:
“I thought that with the hard work WSRE Foundation had been doing and raising already $300,000, that 57 years of history deserved a little longer, a little more chance to survive.”
Hobbs’s removal from the board cleared the way for Zack Smith to become the new chair. PBS programming on WSRE ended June 30.
- That overlap is exactly why Brinkley’s departure raises the question of what comes next for WUWF and its NPR affiliation. The people who oversaw WSRE’s break with PBS now have seats at the table that oversees WUWF.
Emerald Coast PBS: The Replacement Arrives
On July 1, the day after WSRE’s disaffiliation took effect, PBS announced on Threads that a new station to serve Pensacola and Gulf Coast viewers: Emerald Coast PBS, available through the PBS app.
- PBS confirmed in a reply to an inquiry that WSRE, along with WVUT in Vincennes, Ind., and WBGU in Bowling Green, Ohio, are no longer PBS affiliates. Viewers in those markets can now watch Emerald Coast PBS through the app, though for now it will not have a presence on partner platforms like YouTube TV, Hulu+Live TV, Prime Video, or DirecTV Stream.
The new station has a website at EmeraldCoastPBS.org. Its homepage message explains the transition:
- WSRE’s PBS Passport program and donor membership account were discontinued as part of PSC’s decision to end the affiliation.
- PBS says it is working to establish a new local PBS connection for the Pensacola and Gulf Coast region.
- Viewers will soon be able to renew PBS Passport membership through a donation to Emerald Coast PBS.
- PBS frames the new donations as building “a strong local PBS presence for the communities of Northwest Florida and the Gulf Coast.”
Bottom line: The programming region lost when PSC’s trustees voted to leave PBS is coming back, just not through WSRE, and not yet through the cable and streaming bundles most viewers are used to.
What to Watch
- Who UWF names as WUWF’s next executive director, and what mandate they’re given.
- Whether Diaz or trustees signal any interest in revisiting WUWF’s NPR affiliation, following the WSRE playbook.
- How Emerald Coast PBS builds out its donor base and whether it eventually reaches partner streaming platforms.
- The ongoing WSRE Foundation litigation over the $5.6 million the foundation held when PSC voted to end the affiliation.
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