Radio Content Analysis

Local news radio listeners are not hearing the same stories they would get from other media. And, in spite of the high level of consolidation that has taken place in radio, they are not hearing just nationally syndicated material with little local connection.

More than half the airtime (57%) on May 11 took a local perspective and another 16% were regional in focus. Eighteen percent delved into areas that did not fit clearly into any geographic boundary, such as divorce, health matters or the daily news quiz. The other quarter took a national or international angle.

Geographic Focus of Local Radio News

The stories that dominated the national media were a minor factor here. The four national stories that got the most coverage across the media generally this day were covered, but usually just briefly in the headlines at the top of the hour. A mere 5% of the stations’ newshole spoke to these stories — only suburban daily papers covered them less (4%). Listeners could easily miss them if they weren’t listening closely.

What topics were covered? By and large, listeners learned about three main subject areas: local government issues such as tax bills and the school budget; crime (murders, local voter fraud, and missing persons as well as the murder story in Zion , Ill. , a national news items this day); and domestic issues such as education and marriage, whether tied to local events or to broader, non-geographical concerns. Each of those areas accounted for close to a quarter of the total air time. All other topics were fit into the other quarter of air time. That was a different mix from local television that day which was close to twice as dedicated to crime but much less so to government news. And it was a narrower focus than we found in local print media.

Topics on Local Radio

Of the top 14 stories in WTMJ’s morning news hour, for instance, 10 were local. Eight of those were about local crimes.

WTMJ, Milwaukee Morning News: 14 Stories