2004 Annual Report - Radio Newsroom Investment | Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ)

March 15, 2004

The story inside radio newsrooms is not good.

According to survey data, people are not well paid and their numbers are dwindling rapidly. More news directors are being asked to manage multiple stations. Budgets are shrinking.

The main source of information for this are the annual surveys conducted by Bob Papper and Michael Gerhard for the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA).

Staffing

The RTNDA data through 2001 revealed a steady and sizable drop in radio news staffing over the past decade. In 2001, the average radio newsroom had roughly two people - full-time and part-time combined - on staff (1.95 on average), down from closer to three people a year earlier (2.60 on average). Compare this to 1994, when the average radio news operation had 2.4 full-time people and 2.1 part-time, for a total of 4.5 people. So, in seven years, radio newsroom staffing dropped 57 percent. Full-time employees were down 44 percent. Part-time employees were down 71 percent.¹

In 2003, consolidation issues required the RTNDA to change its survey methodology. The new figures measure the number of individuals staffing a news department, though not necessarily the news department of a single station. In other words, while the numbers show stations in major markets have an average of six full-time staffers, those six people might be responsible for producing news content for a number of stations. According to data provided by Papper, "The average news department runs news on 3.16 stations… and… more than four in 10 radio news departments (41.9 percent) say they do news for one or more stations outside their own market."² Thus, the increase in staffing figures may actually indicate that overall there are fewer staffers per station.

Changes in Radio News Staff and Budget

2001 compared to 2000 Increase Same Decrease Not Sure

Total Staff 25% 66 6 3

Amount of News 29% 67 4 0

Change in News Budget 22% 47 3 28

Plan to Change Amount of News Next Year 18% 71 1 10

Source: "RTNDA/Ball State University Annual Survey"

Management

The trends we see in radio news staffing are made further evident as we look at the climb in the number of stations being overseen by a single news director. In 1999, just 3 percent of news directors were managing five or more stations. In 2000, that total jumped to 12 percent and, according to the RTNDA's data, that number has leaped to more than 18 percent in 2003. Just one-quarter of all news directors surveyed were managing news at a single station.

How Many Stations News Directors Oversee, 2003

Design Your Own Chart

Source: "RTNDA/Ball State University Annual Survey," 2003

These news directors also increasingly do more than news. More than 75 percent of news directors said they had responsibilities beyond the news, including programming, announcing and operations (the technical side of radio), an increase of 9 percentage points in just a year ago. This is true even in the major markets, where more than half say they have multiple responsibilities. The number of news directors who said they also handled sales appears to be continuing a slow climb from 6 percent in 1999 to 9 percent in 2003.³