Radio Audience Trends

In all the discussion of the rapid growth of satellite membership and worry over an audience exodus from conventional radio, one can lose track of public radio. That universe includes Pacifica Radio, National Public Radio, American Public Media and Public Radio International. Each of those radio groups operates somewhat like a TV network, supplying programming to public-radio member stations for a fee. The local member station can then intermix nationally broadcast material with locally created content. For example, Maine Public Radio follows its evening broadcast of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” with the regionally focused “Maine Things Considered.”20 KUNM-FM in Santa Fe , N.M. , programs a mix of public broadcasting content that includes NPR’s Morning Edition, PRI’s National Native News and Pacifica’s Democracy Now! program.

Public radio appears to be a growth area. Numbers provided to the Project by National Public Radio indicate that NPR’s weekly audience had been flat between 2003 and 2005. To keep this number in proper perspective, even with no growth that would still mean that the organization’s weekly audience of 22 million represented 50% growth over the past five years and 315% since 1985.

But the Wall Street Journal cited other NPR data suggesting that the audience had grown to 25.3 million listeners, which would be up 3.3 million since 2004. The higher number, according to NPR, included audience estimates not only for NPR programming like “All Things Considered” but also for shorter newscasts played on member radio stations. That makes the numbers inappropriate for historic or longitudinal comparison.

Cognizant of the role public radio plays in fostering a connection between the local and the national and, in a way, stepping into the void left by the consolidation or closing of many local radio newsrooms, Public Radio International, in 2003, developed Capitol News Connection. The idea behind it is to bring political news from Pennsylvania Avenue to Main Street by creating what PRI describes as “ unique localized reporting — custom crafted for each subscribing station…”21 In other words, rather than asking listeners to make what may occasionally be a complicated connection between national political news and their own lives, CNC works to make that link part of the story. According to its Web site, launched in July 2003, CNC is now broadcast in some 220 markets.22

The profile of news on public radio — its tendency to tell stories in longer segments with complex narratives — is attracting talent from outside. Recently Ted Koppel, longtime anchor for ABC’s “Nightline,” signed on with National Public Radio to do occasional commentaries. He joins a list of “outsiders” that includes, among others, the ABC News correspondent Michel Martin (who will continue to do pieces with ABC), Robert Krulwich (also formerly with ABC News), and John Hendren and Elizabeth Sogren, who had both previously been with the Los Angeles Times. Bill Marimow, NPR’s managing editor and acting vice president for news and information, came to the network from the Baltimore Sun. That sort of switch is nothing new at NPR — Daniel Schorr and Michele Norris came from other media and are now firmly identified with the organization — but at a time when newsrooms are becoming smaller entities within larger chains and corporations, the public radio newsroom is assuming a new stature. Relating a conversation he had with Koppel, NPR’s senior vice president of programming, Jay Kernis recalled, “We said, ‘You have to find somebody else who will pay you a lot of money so we can pay you a little money…’ Mr. Koppel concurred. He said, ‘Jay, this is not about the money.’ ”23

Nor is public radio ignoring the growing presence and pressures of the new audio. Public radio has adapted its terrestrial identity to one that exists online. Its programming is available on both of the satellite networks, and it was an early mainstream media experimenter with the creation of program podcasts. NPR’s Annual Report for 2003 said its Web site averaged more than 2 million unique monthly visitors and some 50 million total visits. “At the peak of the lead-up to the war in Iraq , 45,000 simultaneous users were listening to the NPR online program stream,” the report said.24

NPR’s audience members followed it to the Web not simply because it was a Web site or because there were podcasts to be downloaded, but because of the content available. Again, according to the network’s annual report, NPR.org visitors e-mailed “more than one-half million NPR stories to friends and family…”25 An article posted in the Online Journalism Review’s Web site reported that “On Nov. 21, NPR’s podcasts held down 11 spots on the iTunes Top 100, more than any other media outlet.”26 NPR is also hosting podcasts of member-station shows, crafting content from various programs into thematic pods like “NPR: Books,” or “NPR: Open Mike,” and even producing original content for its own alternative brand of alt.NPR “as an incubator for edgier content.”27 Given the numbers, it would seem that the network’s efforts to adapt to the changing technology while not forgetting the role it serves for its longtime listeners is proving to be a successful model.