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'State of the Media: Radio
Dale Willman

First, a personal aside: Let me admit something right up front— I love radio. I've worked in the medium almost exclusively since 1974, and I was hooked on the power of radio from the start. My first job was with a station in a small Ohio town, where listeners tuned in not primarily for the music. That they could get from a better station in nearby Cleveland.

Rather, they listened for what they could only get from us -- news about their community. Unlike the Cleveland stations, we told our listeners what their local elected officials were doing. We described what their police department was up to. But the one thing that has always stuck with me was the "Daily Record Report" after the three o'clock news every day. I always remember it, because that's when we read the local paper including the obituaries.

As odd as that might sound, it was an important service for the elderly who could not leave their homes. We provided a link for them to the outside world.

It was this sense of community that local radio provided so well—an audio version of the town square. And it is that sense of community that is so obviously lacking from radio today.

Granted, most towns can do without a daily dose of death announcements. But that means local news is about all that's left to separate local radio stations from their satellite cousins. And the state of local radio news is in trouble.

Now, this is not the conclusion of this report. In fact, Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which produced the report, says they chose not to draw too many conclusions. He says that for the first report, "It was important for us to establish ourselves as a credible source of info." And besides, he says, drawing conclusions was not always necessary, "some of the data speaks for itself."

And that it does:

• From 1994 to 2001, radio newsroom staffing dropped 57%. Fulltime employees were down 44%, while part-time employees were down 71%.
• Those employees remaining are doing more work. The average radio news department now produces news carried on 3.16 stations.
• They are also underpaid. The median salary for news reporters was $23,000 a year in 2003. Sports reporters made less than $18,000.
• Radio news directors are doing more work for their money. In 2003, 75% of all news directors say they were managing news on more than one station.
• 41.9% of radio news departments say they do news for one or more stations outside their market.
• The overall amount of news produced is small -- on average, 44 minutes per weekday, spread out over multiple stations. And the amount of news being produced seems to be dropping each year.
• Time spent listening to radio is down 14% since 1994.

Given these facts, it's simply impossible to credibly argue that local radio news is holding its own today, let alone thriving. Instead, it's clear that local news is continuing a steady, and at times rapid, decline.

Of course, that also means less environmental coverage is making its way onto the radio airwaves. And given that environmental news already makes up so little of the news hole for any medium, including radio, the decline of total time given to radio news means already limited environmental coverage will become even more restricted.

While radio remains an understudied medium (compared, say, to its broadcast brethren in television) this report has completed an exhaustive examination of the data. But where it fails, if anywhere, is in its unwillingness to state the obvious. Rosenstiel, however, says that may never happen; "I don't know how far we'll ever go in coming up with conclusions."

While this could prove to be a real shortcoming over time, the data collection alone represented in this report is still well worth reading.