RTDNA/Hofstra Study Looks At Amount Of Local News On The Air

Study

The RADIO TELEVISION DIGITAL NEWS ASSOCIATION has released the sixth report from its annual newsroom survey with HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY, this time tracking the amount of local news on stations nationwide and finding that local radio newscasts dropped on average by two minutes a day, although the number of clusters with news on at least one station was up.

HOFSTRA Professor Emeritus BOB PAPPER writes that 79.2% of local clusters have at least one station in the group with local news, up almost 4%, and 66.2% of stations in the survey are airing local news, 71.9% of AMs and 63.9% of FMs. But the percentage of stations airing local news overall declined 3.8%, following a 7.7% drop in last year's survey.

Other findings: Most stations kept the time devoted to local news steady, with major-market stations more likely to be expanding news time; Country and AC stations were most likely to air local news, just ahead of News-Talk, with Oldies/Adult Hits, Rock/Alternative, Religion and Jazz/Classical next. And the average radio station airs 75.6 minutes of news on weekdays, with major-market stations at 129.3 minutes, much the same as a year ago.

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