No Growth Seen For Radio News Staffing

The latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey found that there was no overall growth in staffing radio news operations in 2010; however the year was seen as a turn around year for local TV news.

The typical (median) radio news operation had a full time news staff of one, the same as it's been since Bob Papper started doing these surveys 17 years ago.  Radio news remains highly centralized, with the typical news director overseeing the news on three stations, more than two-thirds of those multi-station operations have a centralized newsroom, and just about 80 percent of radio news directors say they have additional station responsibilities beyond news.

The number of radio stations in a market tended to have little to do with the size of the staff.  Commercial stations overall had larger staffs than non-commercial stations, as did group-owned rather than independent.

Non-commercial and independent radio stations were most likely to have grown in the past year, but overall, size really didn't change much. Three-quarters of stations expect no staff changes this year, although six times as many stations expect staff to increase rather than decrease.  Still, the numbers are small.  Those expecting growth are most often non-commercial stations and stations in the largest markets.  Budgets were better in 2010, and fewer than half as many stations reported budget decreases as in the year before.  Generally, the bigger the market, the more likely to see a budget increase.

Read more of study, here.

Survey finds 2010 turnaround year for TV News jobs. Previous posting, here.

Bob Papper is the Lawrence Stessin Distinguished Professor of Journalism and chair of the Department of Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations at Hofstra University and has worked extensively in radio and TV news.  This research was supported by the School of Communication at Hofstra University and the Radio Television Digital News Association.