Radio Newsroom Investment

Much like the figures for radio salary, the numbers for newsroom size are difficult to fully factor out. Even with salaries apparently increasing slightly, radio newsrooms appear to be shrinking. The picture gets fuzzier, too, because people working in newsrooms increasingly handle news for more and more stations.

In other words, while a single newsroom may have six employees — the same number it had three years ago — those six people may be producing news content for three additional stations, which makes the sense of newsroom stability something of an illusion.

The average news director in 2004, for example, oversaw 3.75 stations, according to the latest data from the RTNDA/Ball State survey. And the great majority produced news for more than one station. Only about a quarter of news directors in America are now programming news for a single outlet. That number rose just slightly from the year before (27% in 2004 versus 25% in 2003) but those overseeing nearly quadrupled, to19% from 5%.4

Not only have news directors taken on more newsrooms, they have less staff to help run them. Two-thirds of news directors decreased their newsroom size in 2004, according to the survey data, while less than a quarter (23%) increased them. What’s more, the situation is expected to get worse. Fully 77% anticipate their newsroom decreasing, with only about 10% expecting increases. According to the survey, noncommercial news stations were twice as likely to have added staff as well as to anticipate future staff increases.5