Audio

Introduction

By the Project for Excellence in Journalism

While many sectors of the mainstream news media struggled, in 2008 cable shined.

CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all gained viewers, were projected to see record profits, and expected to increase spending on newsgathering and bureaus around the world. CNN even launched a wire service to compete with the Associated Press.

In the last two months of the year, however, after the hoopla of the presidential election ended, ratings plummeted, and questions arose about how much of the gain would last.

Why did cable news outperform virtually every other news organizations? The answer begins (and perhaps ends) with the presidential election. All three channels focused more of their time on the race than virtually any other news operations in the country, especially at night. The talk show format that dominated cable’s prime time became even more ideologically polarized, Fox News hewing right, MSNBC left, and CNN coming closer in tone to the media elsewhere. And cable’s politically active audiences tuned in as never before.

The formula was not without controversy, especially at MSNBC. When the network allowed talk show hosts to anchor primary night and convention coverage, even some people at its parent NBC News complained, worrying about damaging the NBC News brand. At almost the same time, however, the channel found new ratings success in liberal pundit Rachel Maddow.

While the formula paid off, by the end of the year it also left as many questions as it had answered.

In early 2009, audiences were up in the first two months, suggesting the channels might retain some, but not most, of the viewership gained during the election year.

Radio Content

By the Project for Excellence in Journalism

The presidential election provided ready fodder for the nation’s talk show hosts, who made full use of the opportunity –to the exclusion of many other topics.

The headline newscasts of ABC and CBS, however, took the opposite approach. The amount of the newshole that they devoted in 2008 to the election was less than that of the talk show hosts and the media in general. Economic and business news loomed larger for the network headline services.

National Public Radio’s political coverage was a little closer to the average of the media at large in terms of newshole. NPR listeners heard less about the economy and business, crime, health and disasters, than they did from the radio headline services. But the public radio outlet provided almost twice as much international coverage as the media over all.

Talk Radio Hosts’ Favorite Topics: The Election (and Themselves)

In a heated and historic election year, the campaigns and politics accounted for 60% of the radio talk newshole in 2008.

Nothing else came close. But the No. 2 subject said something fundamental about the talk business. It wasn’t an economy in meltdown or foreign events, with U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. No, the talkers’ second-favorite subject (for the second year in a row) often involved invoking the first person pronoun. Conversations about the media, much of which focused on the hosts themselves, accounted for almost one-tenth of the talk newshole in the year.

In a medium that is very much about the person behind the microphone connecting with listeners, self-referential comments often come with the territory for conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage and their liberal counterparts Ed Schultz and Randi Rhodes. And no talk host has used the microphone to market himself as successfully as Limbaugh, who signed a new contract last year that reportedly will pay him $400 million over eight years.

Limbaugh generates a good deal of mainstream media attention—he was profiled in the New York Times Sunday magazine in July—and that often becomes a topic on his program. On March 10, for example, he spent time discussing media reaction to controversial and somewhat off-color comments he made about a possible Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama ticket. After counting up various media references to him, Limbaugh said, “That’s a dilemma for somebody who doesn’t want to make the show about themselves… I find it fascinating how I am continually misunderstood” in the mainstream press.

But Limbaugh has no monopoly on making himself a subject of his program. On his October 20 show, Schultz used some airtime to discuss his decision to walk off the Fox News Channel’s morning show when he felt he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

“What other lefty has the [vulgar term] to walk out on Fox News in the middle of an interview?” he asked. “I’m tired of being interrupted on Fox… Americans don’t think they’re fair and balanced.”

When you add up the airtime devoted to politics and the media, those two subjects consumed nearly three-quarters of all the talk radio programming studied by PEJ last year. And in a year in which the over all media agenda was narrow, no platform was as restricted and constricted as talk radio.

The 60% of the talk radio newshole filled by the election and politics compared with 34% of the over all newshole among all media and even exceeded the 56% of cable news airtime devoted to the subject. (With its debate-oriented prime-time lineup heavily reliant on commentary and punditry, cable news is in many ways similar to talk radio.) Conversely, coverage of business and economics—which accounted for 15% of the over all media coverage in 2008—filled only 8% of the talk radio airtime. Coverage of overseas events, both those directly involving the U.S. and those that did not, fell across the board last year. But while they still represented 17% of the over all media newshole, that number was only 4% in talk radio.

Top Broad Story Topics: Talk Radio vs. Media Over All
Percent of Newshole

Talk Radio		Media Over All
Elections/Politics	60%	Elections/Politics	34%
Media	9	Economics	11
Economics	6	Foreign (Non U.S.)	10
Government	4	U.S. Foreign Affairs	6
Crime	3	Crime	5
U.S. Foreign Affairs	3	Business	4
Environment	2	Government	4
Additional Domestic Affairs	2	Disasters/Accidents	4
Race/Gender/Gay Issues	2	Health/Medicine	3
Business	2	Lifestyle	2

Breaking down the coverage more specifically provides an even sharper sense of the talk hosts’ decision to largely take a pass on events beyond our borders. In the over all media roster of major stories last year, the Iraq war accounted for 4% of the coverage; it was only 1% in talk radio. And such international sagas such as the war in Afghanistan and unrest in Pakistan, which were among the top 10 stories over all in the media, were nowhere to be found on talk radio’s roster of top subjects.

And with the campaign monopolizing the airwaves, the coverage of a number of domestic topics—from crime to lifestyle—decreased from 2007 to 2008. Nowhere was this trend more obvious than with the subject of immigration. In 2007—as conservative talk hosts like Limbaugh and Hannity waged an on-air crusade to defeat a major immigration bill—that topic accounted for 4% of the over all talk airtime. In 2008, it plunged to less than 1%.

Top Stories: Liberal Talk Radio vs. Conservative Talk Radio
Percent of Newshole

Liberal Talk Radio		Conservative Talk Radio
Election*	60%	Election*	60%
U.S. Economy^†	9	U.S. Economy^†	7
Domestic Terrorism	2	Blagojevich Scandal	2
Blagojevich Scandal	1	Global Warming	2
Engergy	1	Energy	1
Iraq War^‡	1	Georgia/Russia Conflict	1
Spitzer Scandal	1	Iraq War^‡	1
New Congress	1	Spitzer Scandal	1
Scott McClellan's Book	1	Israel/Palestinian Conflict	1
Iran	1	Same-Sex Marriage	1

* Includes stories about the campaign, results, and the transition
† Includes stories about the financial crisis, economic issues, gas/oil prices, auto industry, and Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae
‡ Includes stories about Iraq policy debate, events in Iraq, and the impact of the war in the U.S.

How the Hosts’ Ideology Affects Their Choice of Topics

The 2007 immigration debate, which was driven by right-leaning talkers and given short shrift by liberals, illustrated the ideological divide when it comes to determining which subjects get airtime. In 2008, that gap was not particularly evident in the quantity of coverage of stories such as the election, Iraq and the economy. But other events reflected a clear philosophical gap when it came to deciding which stories were worthy of discussion.

One of those subjects was global warming. In 2008, it was a top-five story for conservative talkers with hosts such as Limbaugh and Savage often arguing that the media and liberals were overplaying the threat to the environment. On liberal talk radio, that subject did not even appear among the year’s 15 hottest topics. At the same time, U.S. efforts to combat terror at home was a top-five story for liberal talkers, with Rhodes in particular attacking the Bush administration on things like torture and eavesdropping. But that subject was nowhere to be found among the top stories on the conservative side of the dial.

Another obvious example was the reaction to former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s book. As the title suggests, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” included a tough critique of McClellan’s former boss, President George W. Bush. McClellan was not treated as a hero by either side; Rhodes took him to task for his role as Bush’s press secretary and Savage saw him largely as a turncoat. But the liberal hosts were considerably more interested in the story, giving it about four times as much coverage as conservatives.

Talkers Pick Their Targets in the Presidential Race

The 2008 presidential campaign, with its spirited primary fights on both sides, created some interesting challenges and opportunities for the ideological talk hosts as they picked their targets and favorites from a large group of competitors.

In the early part of the year, during the heaviest primary period, there were two clear talk radio villains—John McCain and Hillary Clinton.

A PEJ study of the character-oriented narratives about the candidates that appeared in the media from January 1 through March 9 found that less than one-fifth of all the assertions about McCain on talk radio were positive compared with fourth-fifths that were negative.

Hillary Clinton didn’t fare well either. Nearly half of all the assertions about her on talk radio either reinforced the idea that she lacked core beliefs (30%) or that she was personally unlikable (16%).

Some of these attacks were predictably partisan, but some came from sources that might have been considered friendly. During the primary elections, top conservative talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity openly favored GOP hopefuls such as Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney over Mike Huckabee and McCain, whom the hosts criticized for being too moderate and well liked by the mainstream media. From January 1 to March 9, a full 73% of the assertions about McCain from the three right-tilting hosts in our sample supported the idea that the Arizona senator was not a reliable conservative.

“The drive-by media is doing everything it can to disqualify the true conservatives on the Republican side,” Limbaugh told listeners in January. “What you’re being told is the only two candidates left that have any chance whatsoever are McCain and Huckabee, which is exactly what the drive-bys want. They want [a] liberal moderate nominee.” Hannity concurred, declaring, “There is clearly an effort [by the media] under way, I think, to convince us, the voters, to go for either, say John McCain or Mike Huckabee.”

The third conservative talker in the PEJ sample, the more contrarian Michael Savage, basically opted for a pox-on-all-their- houses approach. Early on, he called the candidates a “bunch of doddering old fools.” And he promoted his own potential candidacy for the presidency, declaring that he was the overwhelming favorite among the millions of voters who had responded to his Web poll.

For a while, the conservative talkers’ dislike of Hillary Clinton—which dates back to her stint as First Lady in the 1990s—seemed to turn into an alliance of convenience with Barack Obama. For the first few months of the year, they offered more positive assertions (55%) than negative ones (45%) about Obama. But the course of the campaign altered that dynamic. Once McCain had emerged as the presumptive GOP nominee and with the Democratic fight still raging on, Limbaugh began pushing something he called Operation Chaos. He urged Republicans to vote for Clinton in open primaries as a way of keeping the Democratic nomination battle from being resolved and preventing the party from unifying. And by the end of the general election season, Limbaugh and Hannity were aggressively attacking Obama’s candidacy, characterizing him as a radical and a socialist.

On the liberal side of the talk radio spectrum, the two hosts in the sample, Randi Rhodes and Ed Shultz, appeared to favor Obama over Clinton, particularly as the Democratic primary race dragged on.

As early as Feb. 25, just a few weeks after Super Tuesday and more than three months before Clinton would concede defeat, Schultz was calling for her to exit the race on the grounds of Democratic unity. “I think it is time for Senator Clinton to step out,” Schultz declared. “This is damaging to the party.”

The more bombastic Rhodes, no fan of the former First Lady, hammered away after Clinton’s recollection about dodging sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia was proved to be inaccurate. Rhodes called her story a “big stinkin’ lie,” adding that “every single solitary airport landing I have ever had has been more traumatic than what I saw on the video in Tuzla.”

Rhodes’ distaste for Clinton ultimately led to a career-altering experience. In March, Rhodes made news by using a crude insult to describe Clinton during a stand-up comedy routine in San Francisco. Rhodes’ employer, Air America Radio, suspended her for those remarks, leading to Rhodes’ subsequent departure from the liberal talk network where she had been a marquee name. She quickly resurfaced as a syndicated talker on the Nova M radio, where she continued to be critical of Clinton’s primary campaign against Obama. (See Talk Radio for more Information)

Radio Network Headlines: Broad, Balanced and Quick

If talk radio is designed to generate debate by cherry picking and then magnifying a few hot topics (or, as was the case in 2008, basically one hot topic) from the news landscape, the CBS and ABC radio headline broadcasts do just the opposite. They are intended to provide a quick but broad digest of the wide range of daily events. And in 2008, they delivered a carefully apportioned mix of the three most significant topics — the economy, the election and foreign affairs.

The most striking aspect of the radio headline menu was the relative lack of coverage of politics and the election—16% of the newshole, which was less than half the amount devoted to that topic by the media over all. In fact, there was substantially more coverage of economics and business (25%) in these headline services, a figure considerably larger than the 15% of the newshole given over to economics and business in the media over all. (One reason for that is the faithful recitation of stock prices frequently heard on those headline wrap-ups.) Another 13% of the airtime was devoted to foreign events, moderately less than the over all media allotment of 17% of newshole to those stories.

Those three subjects accounted for slightly more than half of the headline newshole, and several other topics got reasonable amounts of coverage as well. Disasters and accidents accounted for 7% of the airtime, as did crime, followed closely by health and medicine at 5%. All three of those subjects received more attention in the radio headlines than they did in the media over all in 2008.

Typical of the radio headlines news menu was this one from CBS on June 6, 2008, just a few days after the last primary voters had cast their ballots in the long Democratic nomination battle.

The top story was about the biggest monthly jump in unemployment figures in 22 years followed by a quick report on an off-the-beaten-path aspect of the economic crunch—roads and highways were in disrepair because of the skyrocketing costs of using oil-based asphalt. The next story was a brief recap at what the political world was buzzing about that day, a meeting between Obama and Clinton that spiked speculation about a possible vice-presidential slot for the former First Lady. Then came brief updates about storms and tornados in the Midwest and a drought that had spawned raging wildfires in North Carolina. Finally, there was a piece on efforts by anti-doping agencies to decide whether Viagra’s performance-enhancing qualities extended to bicycle races, thus necessitating a ban on the virility drug.

From the unemployment line to the medicine cabinet, the headlines offered a speedy spin around the day’s news cycle.

Top Broad Story Topics: News Radio Headlines vs. NPR vs. Media Over All
Percent of Newshole

News Radio Headlines		NPR Morning Edition		Media over all
Economics	19%	Foreign (Non-U.S.)	20%	Elections/Politics	34%
Elections/Politics	16	Elections/Politics	19	Economics	11
Disaster Accidents	7	Economics	12	Foreing (Non-U.S)	10
Foreign (Non-U.S.)	7	U.S. Foreign Affairs	9	U.S. Foreign Affairs	6
Crime	7	Business	4	Crime	5
U.S. Foreign Affairs	6	Lifestyle	4	Business	4
Business	6	Government	3	Government	4
Health/Medicine	5	Disasters/Accidents	3	Disasters/Accidents	4
Government	5	Crime	3	Health/Medicine	3
Lifestyle	3	Environment	3	Lifestyle	2

NPR’s Morning Edition Goes Big on Global

As part of its weekly News Coverage Index, PEJ studied about 130 hours of National Public Radio’s signature early news program, Morning Edition, in 2008. In terms of news priorities, the NPR component of radio news is far closer to the network radio headlines than the commercial talk format. But there are still some distinguishing features to the NPR news agenda, particularly when it comes to covering the world.

As NPR’s listening audience has grown by about 75% in the past decade, one of its perceived strengths has been international coverage at a time when many mainstream media organizations are shutting foreign bureaus. In 2008, the biggest component of Morning Edition coverage—30%—was devoted to news from overseas. That is nearly double the global coverage—17% of the newshole—in the media over all in 2008. And it even exceeds, slightly, the international coverage in the online media sector (27%), which has consistently devoted more attention to the rest of the world than the other four major platforms—cable news, network news, newspapers and the over all radio sector.

A further examination of that overseas coverage shows a significant tilt toward stories that did not directly involve the United States. While , coverage of non-U.S. stories accounted for 10% of the newshole in 2008 in the media over all, they accounted for 20% on Morning Edition. That 20% figure was nearly triple the attention (7%) the radio headline reports devoted to non-U.S. stories.

That international coverage ranged broadly, often going beneath the major narratives and top headlines. There was an offshoot-of-the-economic-meltdown narrative that looked at the impact of the financial crisis on Senegal, in Africa. There was a piece on rising tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the Mideast after a conference of Islamic scholars in Mecca. And a somewhat prophetic account that ran before Russia rolled its tanks into Georgia examining Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s efforts to rebuild Russia’s degraded military forces.

At the same time, Morning Edition’s coverage of some of the more prominent and pressing international stories—such as the Iraq war (6% of the airtime studied), Pakistan (2%), China (2%) and Afghanistan (2%)—roughly doubled the amount of attention that the over all media paid to them.

Foreign Coverage: NPR’s Morning Edition vs. Media Over All

2008

Design Your Own Chart

Source: PEJ, A Year in the News, 2008

NPR also featured slightly more coverage of the campaign and politics (19%) than the commercial radio news headlines (16%), but that total was still far below the political coverage (34%) in the media over all in 2008. In some other areas, NPR offered less coverage than the network headline reports, such as business and economics (16% compared with 25%), crime (3% compared with 7%), health and medicine (2% compared with 5%) and disasters and accidents (3% compared with 7%). In terms of quantity of coverage in those subject areas, NPR was not much different from the media over all in 2008. And the discrepancies here are more of a reflection of the headline reports’ niche of delivering a quick account of the day’s news.

Radio Differences in Format

Given its journalistic resources , Morning Edition had the largest over all component of interviews and pre-recorded story packages in the radio sector. The NPR program and commercial network headline reports were almost identical when it came to the percentage of airtime devoted to prepared story packages (59% to 57%). But 17% of the time on Morning Edition was filled by interviews compared with less than 1% on the headlines.

What the headlines lacked in interviews, however, they made up in staff voices on the air. About 41% of the headlines’ newshole was filled either by live staff reports or anchor reads, compared with 24% the NPR show.

Format of Radio News Story
Percent of Newshole

	NPR Morning Edition	News Radio Headlines	Talk Radio
Packaged Story	59%	57%	<1%
Interview	17	<1	11
Staff Live	15	24	<1
Anchor Read (Voice-over/Tell Story)	9	17	0
Live Event	1	2	<1
Talk Radio with Audio Clips	N/A	N/A	49
Talk Radio Without Audio Clips	N/A	N/A	39
Unedited Audio/Video	0	0	<1

For obvious reasons, the host-driven, commercial talk radio format is markedly different than either the headlines or Morning Edition and virtually none of the time is taken up by reported packages. There is, however, a significant difference in the percentage of airtime devoted to interviews depending on who is hosting the show. And again, it breaks down by ideology. The liberal talkers spent more than twice as much time doing interviews as their conservative counterparts, 17% to 7%.

A look at the individual hosts, at least in the part of the programs examined by PEJ, indicates that two of the talkers on different sides of the spectrum—the liberal Schultz and conservative Savage—do by far the most on-air chatting, with 24% of Schultz’s time take up with interviews compared with 17% for Savage. The two talkers who do, by far, the fewest two-way conversations in the time examined were Hannity (4%) and Limbaugh (3%). That reinforces the sense that Limbaugh is the star and centerpiece of his program. The liberal Rhodes was somewhere in the middle at 9%.

Audience

By the Project for Excellence in Journalism

Introduction

Traditional radio, although falling behind newer forms of audio, remained a highly popular source of news for Americans in 2008.

One reason for that popularity is its ubiquity. Radios are found in almost every home, car and workplace.

But traditional radio is also increasingly sharing time with other forms of listening. Among the emerging forms of audio, satellite saw the most impressive growth again in 2008, although there are still signs of consumer resistance to the idea of paying for something that has always been free. Far more people say they don’t intend to subscribe to satellite radio than say they will.

A technology having an even harder time gaining a foothold in the market is HD radio, which broadcasts on digital rather than analog signals and offers several advantages, including clearer sound, finally drew some interest from carmakers but has stayed below the radar of consumers.

The Internet offers yet more options for listening. Podcasting continued to gain popularity, although not as the mobile medium many thought it would be.

And cellphone-based radio, in which AM/FM receivers in cellphones pick up traditional radio signals, grew as well but was hampered by the advent of high-speed wireless broadband networks. People on such networks can connect to the Internet and stream their favorite radio station online with their smartphones and cellphones instead of picking up AM/FM signals.

Broadcast Radio

Traditional, or “terrestrial,” radio remains the most popular form of listening, but it is declining, while usage of online, satellite and HD radio is gaining.

Arbitron, the radio rating service, reported in fall 2008 that radio reached 235 million people over the course of a week, up slightly from 232 million in the fall of 2007.¹

More precise comparison with past years, such as the number of people 12 and older listening in each quarter, was made more difficult. Arbitron began a transition from relying on diaries kept by listeners to portable people meters to gather the data. Initial data from the meters have created considerable controversy and have prompted the A.C. Nielsen Company to re-enter the radio ratings business in some markets in 2009. (see below for more information)

One thing that has remained fairly stable is where people listen to traditional radio. It is widely dispersed. Over all, 39% of radio listening is done in homes, followed by 35% in cars and 23% at work.²

News/Talk Listening

Among all the formats available on the radio, news/talk remains a major one, although, as many analysts point out, it is increasingly more talk and less news.³

The term encompasses news, talk shows and other forms of information programming aside from sports. It is the second-most-listened to format on radio, behind country music, with 48 million listeners and 1,533 stations, according to Arbitron.

News/talk is also either the No. 1 or No. 2 format in every region except one, the south-central part of the U.S. (Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky).⁴

Listeners of news/talk radio tend to be older than those of other formats, plus more educated and affluent. More than half (57%) are over the age of 55 and three-quarters (77%) are over 45. Nearly half (45%) are college graduates and more than 4 in 10 (41%) have a household income of $75,000 or more.

Age may be a factor of the differences between AM and FM listeners. Traditionally, most news/talk has aired on the AM band, where listeners tend to be older. And Jim Farley, vice president of news and programming at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., told PEJ that some broadcasters have seen their audiences get younger when they moved their signals to FM but otherwise kept the programming unchanged.⁵ “I hypothesize that it is AM radio, not news or news/talk, that skews older,” he said. “It’s the band they listen on, not the subject matter.”

Slightly more than half of Americans report listening to news/talk at home. The next highest location is the car, 34.4%, followed by work, 12.8%.

After declining earlier in the decade, there is some sign that the listenership to news and talk may have stabilized.

Arbitron data find that the amount of time people spent listening to news/talk remained the same as two years earlier: an estimated 9 hours and 15 minutes per week.⁶

Listeners to News/Talk/Information, by Age

2002-2008

Design Your Own Chart

Source: Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2008 Edition,” March 12, 2008

Another survey found similar stability in recent years. In 2008, just over a third (35%) of Americans said they listened to news on the radio “yesterday,” according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, substantially unchanged from 36% in 2006.

Those numbers were down more strikingly from 43% in 2000, the early days of the Internet, and also meant that radio had fallen behind cable news, local television and the Internet as a regular news destination.

If the numbers continue to be stable, however, audio may have begun to sort out its place in the new landscape.

News/Talk Radio Growth

1990-2008

Design Your Own Chart

Source: Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2008 Edition,” March 12, 2008

No figures available for 2000

HD Radio

Another form of listening, HD radio, failed to expand in 2008, although its backers saw signs of hope.

Like its better known counterpart, HD television, HD radio promises better fidelity and more choices.

But, unlike television, the HD for radio does not stand for “high definition.” It is a brand name for a technology provided by iBiquity Digital. Unlike television, radio broadcasters have not been required to convert their analog signals to digital ones. Many stations have decided the costs are too high for the potential benefits.

The appeal of HD is that it is a digital signal with several advantages over traditional analog AM and FM. HD radio signals offer a clearer sound that is less prone to interference and static than analog signals.

HD stations also have the ability to “multicast” programs. That means they can broadcast more than one program simultaneously, often referred to as HD1, HD2, etc. This provides stations with the ability to hone their content more specifically to niche markets.

For example, 96.9 WTKK-FM in Boston has one HD main channel that is mostly devoted to talk and a second HD2 channel on which it broadcasts only Irish music.

For consumers, HD radio’s digital signal also offers an interactive element with potential applications. For example, listeners can, with the push of a button, “tag” a song they like. Later, they can dock their iPod with the HD radio and buy the song.⁷

Real-time traffic updates and mapping may soon be available, a technology that is in development by iBiquity.

The drawback to HD radio is that it requires consumers to buy a new receiver to get the HD signal, and sales of the devices have been slow. As of July 2008 an estimated 500,000 HD radios had been bought in the U.S. since their debut in 2002.⁸

With no requirement to convert to digital, and with only modest sales of receivers, fewer and fewer stations are making the switch each year. Just 185 stations switched to HD in 2008. This is down from 394 in 2007 and 522 in 2006. In total, 1,828 radio stations were broadcasting in digital in 2008. Of the stations broadcasting in HD, 844, or about 46%, were taking advantage of HD’s multicast capabilities.⁹

Number of Stations Converting to HD in 2008

1999-2008

Design Your Own Chart

Source: BIA Financial Network database, PEJ Research

*PEJ has updated figures from 2003 forward to reflect changes in the BIA system regarding what year stations went digital in the past.

The sharp drop-off in HD conversions could be the result of radio’s difficult economics and the cost of the conversion. According to iBiquity Digital, the transition to HD transmission costs stations on average $50,000 for AM station and $100,000 for FM stations.

HD has also failed to gain much excitement from consumers. Most people don’t even know it exists. Awareness of HD radio leveled off in 2008 to 24% of people 12 and older, compared with 26% in 2007, according to Arbitron.¹⁰

Of those who are aware of HD radio, only 6% said they were “very interested” in it and 23% said they were “somewhat interested.” Most, 41%, said they were not at all interested in HD radio.¹¹

Part of the lack of interest may have to do with the cost of HD units. New HD units cost $100 to $400.

Dave Van Dyke of Bridge Ratings, a media research firm, said, “The economy is now affecting the growth of it. Most people just don’t see the need. The industry has to show people why they need it.” He says there is low interest in HD radio and tough economic times aren’t helping.¹²

An important hurdle for HD radio is that most cars come standard with AM/FM radios instead of ones that receive HD.

The industry is working to have HD radios come as standard equipment in cars and has made some progress. In October 2008 Audi of America announced that it would make HD radios standard in all of its cars starting in 2011.¹³ According to Advertising Age, 14 other auto companies are on board to do the same.

How much news is there on HD radio?

Of the total 1,828 HD stations on air currently, news/talk is the most popular format for these stations with 376 news/talk stations. The second more popular format is adult contemporary (a broad category of music) with 259.¹⁴

Top Formats on HD Radio, December 2008

Design Your Own Chart

Source: BIA Financial Network database, PEJ Research

Satellite Radio

When it came to another listening technology, satellite, 2008 was a year of some new answers. Previously, the heated competition for subscribers between the two satellite rivals, Sirius and XM, meant big promotional budgets that helped the emerging technology gain recognition among consumers. A major question going forward is whether the economies of scale brought on by the merger will allow the financially struggling company to finally turn a profit.

The company that resulted from the merger, Sirius XM, expected to end 2008 with 18.9 million subscribers.¹⁵ That would amount to an increase of 1.6 million people, or 9.2%, from 2007 when the two companies had 17.3 million subscribers between them. Sirius had 8.3 million and XM had 9 million.¹⁶

Satellite Radio Awareness, 2008

Design Your Own Chart

Source: Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2008: Radio’s Digital Platform,” April 25, 2008

Some other indicators, however, hint at trouble. Consumer awareness of satellite radio, for example, failed to grow in 2008, despite the media attention the merger proposal attracted and promotional efforts by the companies. Only 59% of survey respondents in early 2008 said they had heard of XM and 60% said they had heard of Sirius.¹⁷ This is down slightly from 2007 when 64% had heard of XM and 60% had heard of Sirius.

Moreover, the number of people who said they intended to subscribe also showed no growth. Only 14% of people surveyed said they were somewhat likely to subscribe to satellite radio in the next year and 2% said they were very likely, this is down from 15% and 3% in 2007. This could be a sign of a maturing market: as more people sign up there are fewer consumers left to convert to the medium. But, for satellite, the subscriber base is still relatively small so it would be an earlier maturation than those in the industry would prefer.

This decrease in awareness and in the willingness of people to pay for satellite radio may be a temporary blip related to a suspension of promotions by both companies and the declining economy. But if it continues, it could indicate a resistance among consumers to buy subscriptions when terrestrial and even HD radio (once receivers are purchased) are free.

The overwhelming majority of people surveyed by Arbitron, 84%, said they were “not at all likely” to subscribe to satellite radio in the next year.

Satellite radio is an option in most new cars and packages for the service range from $6.99 to $16.99 per month. Satellite radio also offers in-home options, portable satellite radios that are the size of MP3 players, and dock-and-play radios that can be heard in a car and then taken out and used in the home as well. These options range from $40 to $300 per unit.

One bright spot: satellite radio listeners tend to have high household incomes. An estimated 23% have incomes greater than $100,000 a year, which should appeal to advertisers in search of consumers with disposable income.¹⁸

Internet Radio

Internet radio, continued to represent a slowly moving growth area. The number of people who listen to the radio on the Internet crept up slightly in 2008 but remains a fraction of terrestrial radio.

Some in the industry think Internet radio holds great promise for the business of terrestrial radio. Many terrestrial stations now simulcast their programs on the Internet, opening up whole new markets for listeners and advertisers with little additional cost.

But the Internet also means new competition for terrestrial stations from those on the Internet that have no corresponding terrestrial broadcasts. The Internet-only stations tend to cater to very specific niche interests — jazz and classical music, for example.

Whether tied to a broadcast station or not, online radio has developed an audience. Nearly a quarter of Americans over the age of 18 (24%) in April 2008 told the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press that they had listened to newscasts online. They could have been listening to a multitude of things, including a live stream of a terrestrial program, a downloaded version of something previously aired on terrestrial radio, an audio download from a cable website or even an online-only radio site.

Moreover, there are signs that more people are making online listening a habit. According to the survey, 13% of people reported in 2008 that they had listened to Internet radio in the last week, compared to 11% in 2007. This slow increase in online listening corresponds to the simultaneous loss of listeners in broadcast radio.¹⁹ (The survey did not distinguish between terrestrial simulcast and Internet-only radio programs.)

Who is listening to radio online? First, high-tech people who work with computers tend to be big users. Also, men are more likely to listen to Internet radio than women, 52% to 48%. The listeners tend to be older than the population at large, with the largest demographic slice being 35-to-44-year-olds with full-time jobs. ²⁰

Podcasting

Podcasting — downloading audio and video snippets and programs for later listening and watching — enjoyed a fast-growing but still small audience in 2008.

According to survey data from Pew Internet and American Life Project, 19% of people reported they had downloaded a podcast at some point in 2008; this is up markedly from 12% in 2006. On the downside, though, frequency is low: only 17% said they downloaded a podcast on typical day in 2008.²¹

For a broadcaster, the appeal is obvious: no longer is its audience limited to the people within earshot of a radio or television while a broadcast is in process. Now people can download shows or features from a computer to listen to there or to load onto an MP3 for later playback.

For now, more people are choosing to listen on their stationary computer rather than on a mobile device like an iPod, for which podcasting is named. In one survey by Arbitron, 69% of people who downloaded podcasts said they listened to them on their computers, while less than half as many, 28%, said loaded them onto mobile devices.²²

What does it mean for news? Not much, so far.

Of the 48,903 podcasts that are tracked by podcastalley.com as of November 2008, only 1,023 are devoted to news and politics. Of the top 10 most listened-to podcasts, only 3 are categorized as news and politics. ²³

The largest number of podcasts are categorized as general and do not have a specific focus. The largest specific category is music with 8,038 podcasts, followed by technology with 4,254. ²⁴

Economics

By the Project for Excellence in Journalism

Introduction

The economics of radio is changing rapidly and it remains to be seen which model or combination of models will prevail given the rising importance of the Web and declining pool of advertising dollars in traditional broadcast radio.

Revenues for satellite, Internet and mobile radio all grew in 2007, the latest year for which there are final data. The evidence suggests that growth slowed in 2008 and that terrestrial radio could even have declined when the final numbers are tallied.

To be sure, 90% of radio revenue still flows to traditional, or terrestrial, radio. Within that 90%, however, the composition has changed. The share of revenue from on-air advertising is shrinking while the share of money made from event sponsorship, billboards and Internet advertising is growing.

But that that growth is not enough to keep pace with the decline from traditional advertising sources. And broadcasters find themselves competing against a whole new generation of low-cost operators that have popped up online.

Looking across all audio media combined – broadcast, satellite and digital – revenues were flat in 2007.

The market research firm of Veronis Suhler Stevenson predicted further declines for terrestrial radio through 2012, with satellite and digital radio having only slight growth over the next several years of 0.2% annually.

At the same time, the radio industry is nervously awaiting a decision in negotiations over how music royalties will be paid, something that Internet radio broadcasters say will have a big impact on the future.

AM/FM

According to the Radio Advertising Bureau, in the first three quarters of 2008, traditional radio revenue was down 7% compared to the first three quarters of 2007. This compares to an overall drop of 2% in 2007 compared to 2006.

Both local and national advertising fell. National ads are broadcast on stations across the country, usually by large companies, such as auto makers or food producers, while local ads are placed on fewer stations limited to small geographic areas. In the first three quarters of 2008, the money derived from national ads dropped 11%, while that made from local ads fell 8%.

Those drops were mitigated by gains in revenue from other sources associated with radio stations, particularly Internet, billboards, concerts and other off-air sources. That income grew by 9% in the second quarter of 2008 from the same period a year before.¹ But their growth was not enough to make up for the on-air ad declines.

Radio Revenue Growth by Quarter

Design Your Own Chart

Source: Radio Advertising Bureau

Veronis Suhler Stevenson predicts that revenue from digital platforms for these stations (online and mobile) will continue to grow. In 2007, revenue from digital platforms for terrestrial stations was $243 million. If the predicted growth continues, it will be $1.5 billion by 2012, a compound annual growth rate of 43.1% over five years. What is not clear is when or if these trend lines will eventually lead to net gains for the stations.

Traditional Radio on the Internet

One growth area for traditional radio stations is online. Internet radio, where stations can stream their programs online, remains a small part of the overall economics of radio but is growing quickly. It may also represent the best hope for terrestrial radio to stem its receding tide of revenue.

For the owners of terrestrial radio stations, adding an Internet operation is relatively inexpensive. The Web sites typically stream real-time audio feeds and offer additional features such as podcasts. Also, the Internet allows radio stations to compete more directly with local news outlets. As stations add text, video and other formats to their websites, the lines between their offerings and that of the website of a local television station or local newspaper begin to blur.

If a program provides podcasts of its show, it could sell ads before, after or during the podcast.

The $243 million in advertising that Veronis Suhler Stevenson projects that Internet radio generated in 2008 was a gain of 55% over the year before and came on top of an estimated gain of 73% the previous year.² Despite these expected gains, revenue from Internet radio is still expected to be a small part of terrestrial radio’s economic picture.

By contrast, traditional on-air revenues are projected to have a -0.5% compound annual growth rate from 2007 to 2012.³

Audio Revenue Growth

2001-2007

Design Your Own Chart

Source: Veronis Suhler Stevenson, “Communications Industry Forecast 2008-2012”

Some companies have tried to capitalize on the potential of Internet radio through economies of scale.

CBS RADIO, for instance, constructed a shared Internet platform for all its stations. The hope with this new platform is that by creating one place for listeners to get all of its stations CBS RADIO will grow audience and draw advertisers to the platform. Listeners can download a program onto their computers or iPhones, and receive any CBS station’s live audio feed. The platform also permits a user to customize the program, highlighting favorite stations or search for specific musical genres or topical radio programs. It also suggests to the listeners other stations they may like based on their choices and allows listeners to purchase songs they like, among other features.

AOL’s thousands of online-only radio stations were also made available through the service, as part of a joint venture with CBS RADIO. AOL is integrated into the popular AOL network of e-mail, instant messaging and all other Web properties of AOL.

For listeners, this means that AOL radio stations and CBS stations will be available in the same place. Moreover, they can share radio stations they like with friends over AOL instant messenger or e-mail, an obvious promotional opportunity for CBS RADIO and AOL. (See Online Ownership for more information on AOL)

Yahoo’s radio service, Launchcast, followed suit and teamed up with CBS. Launchcast’s more than 150 stations will now be powered by CBS RADIO’s online platform and listeners will be able to access Yahoo radio stations in addition to AOL and CBS. Yahoo’s sports and news sections of the website will feature top-rated CBS RADIO stations. Launchcast service began in February 2009.

Traditional radio stations are trying to take advantage of the opportunities of the digital age. Whether any of them have discovered the ideal model, or one that attracts widespread acceptance from consumers, remains to be seen.

Internet-Only Radio

Internet radio also presents a problem for commercial broadcasters: the most promising technologies are also open to low-cost competitors.

Thousands have emerged to combine radio with interactivity.

Some specialize in musical genres. For example, www.electricbluesradio.com offers free play lists of electric blues music. It makes money from advertising as well as a function that permits users to buy compact discs through Amazon, which rebates a portion of the proceeds to host sites. There are also audio ads, which users can skip for a monthly fee that starts at $5.95 for one-year memberships.

Others, such as Pandora.com, go even further. The Internet-only station permits users to enter their favorite songs and receive and play free playlists based on computer-generated matches. Pandora makes most of its money from advertising. It does offer a $36 premium subscription service that provides an ad-free site that has no ads when accessing Pandora from a mobile phone, but it is not a large source of revenue.

In the fall of 2008 Pandora, a private company that does not reveal is financial results, projected that it would generate revenues of $25 million for the year.⁴

The Fight Over Music Royalties

The future of Pandora.com and the future of much of the emerging Internet radio industry were closely tied to a simmering controversy involving royalty rates paid for music.

Internet radio operators have long complained about a royalty system that they say has not kept up with changes in the industry.

Pandora.com, for example, maintains that it could be paying 70 percent of its revenues in royalties under a plan enacted by the Copyright Review Board.

“We’re losing money as it is,” said Pandora.com’s founder, Tim Westergren. “The moment we think that this problem in Washington is not going to get solved, we have to pull the plug because all we’re doing is wasting money.”⁵

The structure then in place called generally for a 0.0019 of a cent royalty each time a song is played. But there are important differences in how the fee is calculated and paid by different types of radio stations.

Broadcast radio stations were permitted to buy performance licenses annually from one of the various copyright agencies, such as the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP.

The license applies to any of the songs that that agency has in its catalogue.

Stations could also buy per-play licenses, but for all-music stations this was not a cost-effective option.

Internet or satellite stations, however, had to pay the per-song play royalties set by the copyright board.

The problem is not as severe for satellite radio, which pays a lower rate and does not play as many songs as Internet stations like Pandora.com.

But for stations that let their users pick what they listen to, it could be costly. A popular song may get played millions of times a day. Moreover, the medium was required to pay the fee twice: to the composer and the performer.

Broadcast radio executives argued that they were giving the performer free advertising and therefore should enjoy the bulk rates and other advantages. They do, however, pay the Internet fees when a song is played on their Web sites.

Pandora and other Internet radio operations lobbied Congress to have a different royalty rate set for them. The gist of the bill, the Webcasters Settlement Act of 2008, calls for negotiations to set royalty rates for webcasters.⁶

The bill passed both houses of Congress in September 2008 and was signed by President George W. Bush on October 16, 2008. It calls for a new structure or fees to be negotiated by February 19, 2009.

Satellite Radio

The satellite radio landscape underwent a radical transformation in 2008 when the two pioneers, Sirius and XM, won approval to merge into Sirius XM – but then the new company reportedly flirted with a bankruptcy filing before selling a chunk of itself to a white knight investor.

The companies, both of which were individually losing millions of dollars despite gaining subscribers and revenue, said that they could have continued as separate entities but that service to subscribers would be much better and more flexible if the companies merged (See Ownership section for more information on the merger). However, in the months following the merger, listener complaints rose as changes were made to programming.⁷

Unlike traditional, advertising-based radio, satellite radio generates 96% of its revenue from subscriptions paid by listeners. Advertising accounts for the other 4%.

Revenue from the 17.3 million subscribers was $1.9 billion, a 33% increase from 2006. Though robust, the growth in the number of subscribers was slower than the previous year when it leapt by 47.6%. And, the increased revenue failed to result in overall profit.⁸

The question now is whether the single satellite radio provider will save enough in expenses to generate profits. The market research firm of Veronis Suhler Stevenson forecast a 12% compound annual growth rate for 2007 to 2012. For that to be sufficient, the merged company will have to find significant economies of scale, which could lead to elimination of duplicative channels or a sharp reduction in the number of employees.

Early indications were not encouraging. In the third quarter of 2008, revenue increased to $612.8 million, but the company reported a loss of $217 million.⁹ In December 2008, Sirius XM stock fell to 14 cents a share and was in danger of being delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange.¹⁰

On December 18, 2008, Sirius XM stockholders voted to approve to measures to alleviate this problem. One was to increase the number of authorized shares of the company from 4.5 billion shares to 8 billion. The second amendment allows the company at any time before December 31, 2009, to reverse-split the stock.¹¹

As of February 2009 the stock price was listed at 17 cents a share and the Nasdaq had waived its $1-a-share minimum rule until April 20, 2009. With a $175 million loan payment coming due at the end of that month, the company began to explore a bankruptcy filing.

But in rode a financial savior: Liberty Media, the parent company of Direct TV. Liberty Media agreed to loan Sirius XM $530 million. In return, Liberty Media received 12.5 million shares of Sirius XM preferred stock, convertible to about 40% of the Sirius XM stock, along with seats on the board of directors.¹²

Whatever happens, the predicted growth rate of satellite is not as strong as what some expected from mobile, the newest and in some ways most vibrant new competitor in radio.

Mobile Radio

Mobile listening remained a small but rapidly growing area as it headed into 2009.

Over all, revenue from mobile radio grew 200%, but only to a modest $9 million, in 2007, the most recent year for which data were available. The industry, like satellite radio, depends on subscriptions for its financial base. Of the 2007 revenue, $7 million came from subscriptions and $2 million from advertising.¹³

Those revenues are projected to grow at a 117.9% compound annual growth rate between 2007 and 2012, according to Veronis.

Even if the projections prove accurate, though, mobile radio revenue would still be smaller than broadcast, Internet or satellite in 2012. Mobile radio would bring in $443 million in revenue, compared to $1 billion from Internet and $3.3 billion from satellite.

Moreover, it could fall short if another technology, Internet radio on smartphones, supplants it.

Terrestrial broadcasters have launched a major push to have HD and AM/FM radio chips installed in next-generation mobile devices to counter the advent of mobile devices able to connect to the Internet and stream radio stations.

Cellphones – and smartphones and PDAs, etc. – have a unique place in the landscape of advertising. They are the only form of media that people have on their person most of the time. As more people rely on them for Internet, radio and even television, it opens a new vista for advertisers.

Audio Revenue: Growth Projections

2008-2012

Design Your Own Chart

Source: Veronis Suhler Stevenson, “Communications Industry Forecast 2008-2012”

News and Talk Revenue

In all of these audio options, news is only one part of the mix. On terrestrial radio the category of news/talk/information is the No.2 radio format in the country in terms of stations and audience share, according to Arbitron. Many analysts note, though, that over the years the mix has become much more talk and less news.¹⁴

There are signs that the profitability is falling.

In 2007, 21% of news directors said their newsrooms were showing profit, compared to 29.1% in 2006.¹⁵

News directors who said their newsrooms were showing losses also increased to 10.5% in 2007, up from 8.6% in 2006. Directors who said their newsrooms were breaking even remained about the same.

However, the figures are an inexact barometer. Most news directors, 54.8%, reported that they did not know how their newsrooms were doing.¹⁶

Which companies are making the most of their news/talk stations?

CBS RADIO continues to have the highest average revenue per news/talk station, with $21.4 million per station in 2006 and $19.5 million in 2007. The next highest is Cumulus, with $9.1 million average revenue per station in 2006 and $8.4 million in 2007.

The industry leader in number of stations owned, Clear Channel, lags behind in terms of average revenue per news/talk station with $3.3 million in 2006 vs. $3.1 million in 2007.¹⁷ These differences are generally due to the size of the market in which the majority of stations owned by a company operate.¹⁸

Revenue Per News/Talk Station

Design Your Own Chart

Source: BIA Financial Network database, PEJ Research

Similar estimates could not be made for the new audio media. But news represented a much smaller proportion of the programming on Internet-only and satellite radio, raising worrisome questions if they eventually supplant traditional radio.

It should be noted that as the newer technologies grow, the financial importance of news could drop. The technologies that allow consumers more control over what they listen to, such as mobile, podcasting, specialized Internet stations such as Pandora and more, may not involve news at all. In terrestrial radio, almost every one offers some level of news, if only a few minutes at the top of the hour. But even that amount may shrink in new technologies more targeted to niche audiences wanting to tailor the content themselves.

Footnotes

1.“Online and Experimental Marketing Continue to Grow in Radio’s Off-Air Sector as On-Air Is Supported by Select Core Categories,” Radio Advertising Bureau. November 21, 2008

2. Veronis Suhler Stevenson, “Community Industry Forecast 2008-2012”

3. Veronis Suhler Stevenson, “Community Industry Forecast 2008-2012”

4. Interview via e-mail with Joe Kennedy, CEO of Pandora

5. Peter Whoriskey, “Giant of Internet Radio Nears Its ‘Last Stand,’ ” Washington Post, August 16, 2008.

6. Elliot Van Buskirk, “House of Representatives Passes Webcast Bill,” Wired.com, September 29, 2008.

7. Mike Snider, “As Sirius, XM Signals Merge, Customers Are Confused,” USA Today, November 18, 2008.

8. Veronis Suhler Stevenson, “Communication Industry Forecast 2008-2012”

9. Sirius XM Press Release, November 10, 2008

10. Olga Kharif, “Sirius XM’s Dual Concerns: Debt, Delisting” Business Week, December 12, 2008.

11. “Sirius XM Radio Announces Results of Voting 2008 Annual Meeting of Stockholders,” PR Newswire, December 12, 2008.

12. Elliot Van Buskirk, “Liberty’s $530 million Lifeline Keeps Srius Xm Afloat,” Wired.com, February 17, 2009.

13. Veronis Suhler Stevenson, “Communication Industry Forecast 2008-2012”

14. PEJ conversations with Dale Willman executive editor of NPR Field Notes; Adam Clayton Powell III, senior fellow at the University of Southern California, and Chris Sterling, professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University

15. Robert Papper, RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual News Director Survey, “News Staffing and Profitability,” RTNDA Communicator, September/October 2008

16. Robert Papper, RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual News Director Survey, “News Staffing and Profitability,” RTNDA Communicator, September/October 2008

17. The figures are different from last year’s State of the News Media because PEJ has changed the way in which it sorts radio stations by format.

In the BIA Financial Network system stations self-identify their format and many identify themselves as more than one format (i.e., news/talk/sports). In last year’s annual report PEJ sorted for only stations that include the word “news” somewhere in their format code, excluding stations that identified themselves as “talk” without including the word “news.”

This year, using the BIA database, PEJ is employing a different method to sort the stations including those that use the word “news” or the word “talk.” The reason for this is because stations self-identify and there is no clear definition of “news” or “talk” in the BIA system and because the line between “news” and “talk” is increasingly blurred in world of radio.

18. BIA Financial Network and PEJ research

News Investment

By the Project for Excellence in Journalism

Introduction

The picture in radio newsrooms remains a difficult one marked by low pay, centralized operations and heavy workloads.

The centralization of radio news that had fewer newsrooms serving more stations reversed course slightly in 2007, the last year for which full-year data were available. The percentage of news directors being responsible for providing content to several stations went down.

Much of the data about what is occurring in radio newsrooms comes from a survey conducted by Bob Papper of RTNDA/Hofstra University. Papper notes that the sample of radio newsrooms in the survey is relatively small, particularly compared with the companion survey he conducts of television. Given this, some one-year differences may be anomalous, but the trend lines over time are important.

Newsroom Size

According to Papper, radio newsrooms will be particularly affected by the economic crisis and by the downturn in specific key sectors. “I think it’s clear that radio, generally, and radio news, specifically, will have a challenging year in 2009,” Papper predicted in an interview with PEJ.

The economic turmoil that began in 2008 is expected by some to hit radio hard. “Radio is supported primarily by local dollars,” Papper said, “and those dollars are heavily auto-related and retail. Both sectors are in trouble right now…. And we're adding these economic challenges on top of what has been a slow, steady erosion of radio news and radio news people over the last 20-plus years.”¹

That erosion was evident in 2007, before the economic slowdown really gained steam. The average staff size of radio newsrooms fell in 2007, to 2.1 from 2.5 the previous year.²

A major radio market is one with 1 million or more listeners, a large market is one with 250,000 to 1 million listeners, a medium market has 50,000 to 250,000, and small markets have 50,000 or fewer listeners. Major-market stations averaged 4 full-time employees, according to the 2007 data, while medium- and small-market stations averaged 1.9 and 1.6 full-time employees respectively, numbers that generally are in line with the scale of previous years. In large markets the average staff fell from 3.3 in 2006 to 2.9 full-time staff members in 2007.³

Heading into 2008, only 13% of news directors expected an increase in staff. Most, 76%, predicted they would hold steady. But less than 1% expected a decline.⁴

These expectations were similar to what the news directors had already experienced in 2007. Then, three-quarters of radio newsrooms had stable staffing levels (74%), while 13% increased staff and 12% saw cuts.⁵

But all that was before the economy significantly worsened in the second quarter, and before the economic crisis came to full flower in September.

If the already small staffing levels in radio newsrooms begin to shrink in 2009, it would probably only add to another pressure on radio journalists. That is the trend of centralization of radio newsrooms — the pattern in which one station supplies the news out of a single newsroom for more than one station. That phenomenon appeared to slow somewhat in 2007. A year earlier, in 2006, 76% of news directors said they were providing local news to more than one station. In 2007 that number dropped slightly to 72%. The average newsroom provides 2.9 stations in the local market with local news and 1.4 stations outside the local market.⁶

Add to all that — small newsrooms, low salaries and producing shows for multiple stations — one other feature of the modern radio newsroom: the fact that news directors usually have multiple duties. According to the 2007 study, nearly a quarter of news directors (23%) said they were also talk show hosts and 11% said they were also program directors. And 7% said that they were also working in operations, sales or public affairs. Wearing multiple hats has been a feature of radio newsrooms for a long time, the data suggest.

Amount of News and Time of Day

How much news do stations produce? Looking across several years’ worth of data, the average has tended to hover around 40 minutes a day.⁷ What that number makes clear is that most news heard on the radio comes in the form of short headline segments, usually on the hour. As an illustration, 40 minutes over a 24-hour day would mean each newscast is less than two minutes long.

And when do stations tend to air news most?

The biggest time for news on radio is during morning drive time, from 6 to 10 a.m. when, according to Papper’s data, 36.7%% of all the news airs during the week. Evening drive time, from 3 to 7 p.m., accounts for 22% of the news aired and nighttime slightly more at 22.8%. The midday slot (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) continues to air the least amount of news with 12.2 minutes, or 18%, of the news.

According to Arbitron data, listening to the radio generally peaks around 7 a.m. and continues at a fairly high rate through the morning and into the afternoon, until about 3 p.m. It then begins to slowly drop off until the next morning.

The pattern for listening to news is the same, highest in the morning and slowly declining as the day goes on.⁸ What this means is that the news cycle differs slightly from the listening cycle. Stations tend to air more news at the beginning and the end of the day, even though listenership does not have that same midday dip and tends to drop off in the evening when the second-most amount of news is aired.

Radio Salaries

When it comes to salaries, the most notable thing about radio news is how low they are. The median annual salary for local radio news directors is $30,500. Compare that, for instance, to local television news directors at $80,000.

The difference between television and radio is almost as wide for anchors. In television, the median salary is $65,000. In radio, it is $30,000, although in both cases salaries vary widely by market size.

Median Salaries: Radio vs. Television, 2007

Design Your Own Chart

Bob Papper, RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual News Director Survey “Run for the Money,” RTNDA Communicator, June 2008

Based on survey responses of news directors

Radio reporters in 2007 made $23,400 on average per year, while radio producers made $25,400 on average per year.

Papper’s survey data suggest that these salaries have not grown notably in recent years, and there is little reason to expect that to change in 2009, particularly against a bleak economic background.

Median Radio News Comparisons Over time

1994-2007

Design Your Own Chart

Bob Papper, RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual News Director Survey “Run for the Money,” RTNDA Communicator, June 2008

Based on survey responses of news directors

Radio Newsroom Diversity

If radio newsrooms are not well paid, they also continue to be not all that diverse. There is some sign of increase in the data, although year-to-year changes here may be influenced by a relatively small survey sample.

In 2007 the number of minorities working in radio rose to 12%, up from 6% a year earlier, according to the survey data from Hofstra University and the Radio Television News Directors Association. Those changes could be a function of vagaries in the sample, but in any event indicate a relatively low percentage.

In all, according to the data, 88% of the workforce in 2007 was Caucasian. African Americans made up the next largest group at 8% (up from 3.3% in 2006).⁹ Hispanics represented just under 4% of the radio workforce, up from 1% in 2006. Asian Americans represent almost 1%, as do Native Americans.¹⁰

Women are another minority in radio newsrooms. All told, they appear to make up about a quarter of the workforce, according to the Papper survey data (23% in the 2007 survey, similar to 25% a year earlier). Newsrooms that serve major markets have a higher percentage of women in the newsroom than their smaller counterparts. Major-market newsrooms are on average 36% female compared to 21.4% in large markets, 23.6% in medium and 14.8% in small. When it comes to leadership, the numbers of women are roughly similar to radio newsrooms over all. In the 2007 data, 20% of radio news directors were women.¹¹

Satellite Radio News

The impact of the merger on news programming is hard to divine heading into 2009. In terms of content, for now XM and Sirius subscribers will get the same news channels offered by each network before the merger. Sirius has not said how its news content will consist of once the two stations’ content is full merged. (For information on Sirius and XM's news lineup pre-merger see last years report)

NPR

In December 2008 NPR announced its first organization-wide job cuts in 25 years. NPR said it would eliminate about 7% percent of its workforce and cut two of its programs.

A seven percent cut in jobs amounts to 64 employees out of the 889 total staff. About half of the 64 people who will be cut are journalists The two programs slated for elimination were “Day to Day” and “News & Notes.”

The job cuts were spurred by a sharp decline in revenue at NPR. NPR relies on four funding sources: underwriting by corporations, membership fees from member stations, donations, and an endowment made up primarily of a $230 million donation from Joan Kroc, the widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc.

Corporate underwriting, which accounts for about 30% of NPR’s revenue, was hardest hit by the recession. NPR cut its budget for underwriting revenue from $47 million to $33 million in 2008. NPR also expected to make no revenue from the Kroc donation because the investment has declined. This amounts to a loss of about $10 million that NPR was expecting from the endowment.¹²

After the job cuts, NPR had 356 employees in its news division. In fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, NPR’s news budget was $100 million, up from $87.6 million in the same period a year earlier.

NPR had 20 offices in the United States, including its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and 17 foreign bureaus. Since 1999 NPR has opened 9 foreign bureaus.

In July, the NPR board of directors approved a budget for fiscal year 2009 (Oct. 1, 2008 to Sept. 30, 2009) that projected $165 million in revenues, down from $169 million the year prior.¹³

Footnotes

1. Interview with Bob Papper of RTNDA/Hofstra University, conducted by PEJ

2. Robert Papper, RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual News Director Survey, “News, Staffing and Profitability,” The Communicator, October 2008.

3. Robert Papper, RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual News Director Survey, “News, Staffing and Profitability,” The Communicator, October 2008.

4. These figures to not add up to 100 because of respondents who said they did not know.

5. Robert Papper, RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual News Director Survey, “News, Staffing and Profitability,” The Communicator, October 2008.

6. Robert Papper, RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual News Director Survey, “News, Staffing and Profitability,” The Communicator, October 2008.

7. The average minutes per day of news produced by stations jumped to 66.1 minutes in 2007, according to the Papper survey, but that sharp increase was most likely the result of the small sample size in the survey. The 2008 survey should help resolve whether that was an anomaly or something more.

8. According to Arbitron, during the weekday morning (6 a.m. to 10 a.m.) 12.4% of Arbitron’s audience listened to news/talk/information. Then during the mid-day (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) the figure was 11.7%, when, according to radio news directors, the least amount of news is aired. Finally, during the PM drive time and nighttime hours, when more news is aired than during midday, Arbitron’s data has a drop in listeners from 10.3% during PM drive time to 9.6% during the night.

9. Robert Papper RTNDA/Hofstra University, “The Face of the Workforce,” The Communicator, July/August 2008

10. Among news directors the diversity numbers are similar to the stations over all. According to the latest survey, 88% of news directors are Caucasian, 1% are African American, 3% are Hispanic, and less than 1 percent are Asian or Native Americans.

11. Robert Papper RTNDA/Hofstra University, “The Face of the Workforce,” The Communicator, July/August 2008

12. Paul Farhi, "NPR to Cut 64 Jobs and Two Shows," The Washington Post, December 11, 2008.

Ownership

Introduction

Two events stand out in the ownership of radio in 2008. One was the approval of the merger of the two satellite radio companies. The other was what didn’t happen, the predicted shift toward a new kind of ownership in most of the rest of the radio industry.

In the emerging medium of satellite radio, the two pioneers and fierce rivals succeeded finally in combining forces. Sirius and XM became Sirius XM Radio.

Meanwhile, the predicted surge of private equity of radio ownership failed to materialize in 2008.

It was true that the biggest player in the industry, Clear Channel Communications, was sold to private equity investors. That deal was approved by shareholders in 2007 and closed in July 2008.

But no tide of similar transactions ensued. A tentative deal for an investment group to buy the nation’s second-largest owner of broadcast radio stations, Cumulus Media, collapsed. And, despite reports that Emmis Communications and Westwood One were looking for private equity investors, no deal was consummated.

The result was that most of the broadcast radio landscape in 2008 remained dominated by a handful of companies, primarily publicly traded, that own the bulk of the broadcast radio stations in the U.S.

But in satellite radio, the concentration of ownership has gotten even greater.

And then there was one

The big player in satellite is now the only one: Sirius XM.

The company was formed out of the merger of Sirius and XM Radio, the two pioneers in satellite radio. The merger was completed in the summer of 2008 when it won the approval of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Communications Commission.

Originally proposed in February of 2006, the merger attracted controversy with strong voices all on sides.

Proponents of the merger maintained that satellite radio is not a separate market, but rather a part of the radio market and was in fact competing against traditional, or terrestrial, radio, Internet radio and HD radio, among others. In such a context, the two companies said listeners would suffer without a merger and that, if approved, subscribers would get improved service.

“The combined company will be better positioned to compete effectively with the continually expanding array of entertainment alternatives that consumers have embraced,” the two companies said in a joint statement when the merger was proposed.¹

Opponents argued that satellite radio was really a separate medium of its own and that the merger would give a single company monopoly control over it. They opposed the merger on the ground that only with competition would other content providers have access to satellite radio technology.

The interim CEO of National Public Radio, Dennis Haarsager, argued in July 2008 that the new monopoly would hurt the public interest because it would put control of the satellite radio spectrum in the hands of one company: “The public interest is not being served in this decision,” He said. It should be noted that NPR might have benefited from the competition between the companies because it sold programming to both.

The FCC ultimately concluded, with all three Republican commissions voting in favor and the two Democrats dissenting, that permitting the merger was in the best interest of the emerging medium.

Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, a Republican, wrote the decision, saying: “Competition in the audio market has grown substantially in the past few years… When discussing this merger, it is important to keep in mind that satellite radio – both XM and Sirius combined – comprises only 5 percent of that audio marketplace.²

How much news is on satellite radio? As of October 2008, Sirius offered nine stations that were identified as news and two as political talk.³ XM offered nine news channels and five talk channels, as well as its own public radio channel called XM Public Radio.⁴

It was not clear, heading into 2009, whether the news offerings of the new merged company would change.

Number of Stations Owned by Top Broadcasting Companies
2007 vs. 2008

Owner	Number of Stations Owned, December 2007	Number of Stations Owned, December 2008
Clearn Channel	636	833
Cumulus	286	346
Citadel Communications	204	230
CBS RADIO	140	140
Entercom	114	111
Salem Communications Corporation	97	92
Saga Communications Inc.	91	92
Cox Radio Inc.	79	85
Univision	74	69
Radio One Inc.	53	52
Regent Communications	68	62
ABC/Disney	47	47
Entravision	47	48
Cumulus Media Partners LLC	37	36
Journal Broadcasting Group Inc.	35	35
Citadel/ABC	24	24
Emmis Communications	23	23

Source: BIAfn Media Access Pro, PEJ Research, December 2008

The Top Players in Broadcast Radio

Clear Channel

Another transaction, Clear Channel’s sale to the private equity firm CC Media Holdings, also closed in 2008, on July 24.

CC Media, formed by an investment group co-led by Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners, paid $24 billion to become the largest owner of broadcast radio stations in the United States.

Despite speculation that Clear Channel would sell stations after its move to private equity, the number of stations owned by Clear Channel actually increased to 833 stations in 2008 from 636 in 2007. It is still well below the 1,200 stations it owned in 2006, but its total is still twice as many stations as the next biggest player.

The company amassed its empire of stations in the years since 1996, when Congress lifted limits on how many stations one company could own. It took advantage of its scale by producing programs in one location and transmitting them to a number of stations at once. Its size also made it a symbol of the consolidation of media among opponents of the trend. (See PEJ's 2004 State of the Media for some history on Clear Channel)

But Clear Channel’s size and strategy eventually began to create problems, which led the company to begin to downsize and then go private.

How the privatization of Clear Channel will affect its programming or lineup of stations was unclear at the end of 2008.

Clear Channel’s CEO, Mark Mays, said listeners would benefit from the company’s private status.

“Not worrying about quarterly results will enable us to continue to focus on radio listeners like we have in the past. That was becoming more difficult being a public company,” Mays said.⁵

News has not been the dominant format for the company’s stations. Of its 833 stations, 145 were identified as either news, talk or some combination of both at the end of 2008. The rest were music, sports and some other formats such as inspirational and Christian contemporary.⁶

Beyond radio broadcasts, the company also generates a good portion of its revenue from outdoor advertising, such as billboards. Radio broadcasting remains the largest source of revenue, with $844 million in the third quarter of 2008. But nearly as much, $813.3 million, was brought in from outdoor advertising.

The company also has an international division that is an extension of its domestic outdoor advertising business to overseas. This division brought in $54 million in revenue, far smaller than the other two divisions that make up most of Clear Channel’s business.⁷

In winter 2008, Clear Channel and CBS RADIO traded some radio stations. In return for five CBS stations in mid-sized markets Clear Channel gave CBS two radio stations in large markets.

Cumulus Media

The No. 2 terrestrial, or traditional, radio company in the country, Cumulus Media, abandoned its attempt to transition to a privately held company.

Cumulus cited an inability to agree on terms with its buyout partner, Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, as the reason. And in May 2008 it pulled out of the $1.3 billion, $11.75-per-share deal.⁸The company described the parting of ways as “amicable.” ⁹ One factor may have been a drop in the company’s stock value, which had fallen to $4.51 a share – more than $6 below the offering price -- by the time the deal was canceled.

The stock faced subsequent trouble. Shares fell below $1 in November after having been as high as $9.42 in the preceding year.

The company blamed a fall-off in advertising related to the recession.

Cumulus’ chief executive, Lew Dickey, predicted that hard times would force further mergers in the industry, although he did not say if his company would be affected.
"There's never going to be the amount of change — reordering of the landscape — as is going to happen over the next 36, 48 months," said Dickey.¹⁰

Cumulus remains the second-largest owner of radio stations in the United States, with 346 radio stations in 66 mid-size markets. It owns 43 stations that identify themselves as news or talk, or some combination of both formats.¹¹ The rest of the stations are identified as music or sports.

Citadel Communications

Citadel was the third-largest radio company in the U.S., in terms of stations owned. It owns the ABC Radio Network, which it acquired from the Disney Company in 2006.

In all, the company owned 230 stations in 57 markets across the U.S. as of fall 2008. Of those stations, 37 identify themselves as news, talk or some combination of formats that include news or talk.

There also were signs of financial distress for Citadel in 2008. In September, the company announced that its stock price had fallen below the minimum required for listing by the New York Stock Exchange. But the firm said it was in compliance with other listing standards and would continue to be listed while it attempted to boost its share price.

In January 2009 the stock exchange lowered the minimum value of a listed company’s market capitalization – a benchmark that Citadel met. However, the company’s share price was still below the exchange’s minimum and was at risk of being delisted.

Number of Markets Reached by Top Companies, 2008

Design Your Own Chart

Source: BIA Financial Network, PEJ Research

CBS RADIO

CBS RADIO, the nation’s fourth-largest owner of radio stations, renewed its distribution agreement with Westwood One.

The company owns 140 stations in 31 markets and, according to BIA, 31 of the stations identified themselves as news or talk.

That gives CBS, which was among the pioneers of all-news stations in the 1960s, the distinction of still having the greatest focus on news and talk as a percentage of its stations.

In March 2008, Westwood One and CBS RADIO concluded the agreement extending their content-sharing relationship until 2017.

Westwood One has national syndication rights for all CBS news programming and broadcasts CBS news on many of its affiliate stations. CBS RADIO broadcasts Westwood One content in exchange for the use of some of the programming, Westwood One also pays CBS to broadcast some of its content.¹²

In July 2008 CBS announced that it would begin auctioning off 50 of its radio stations and in winter 2008 it agreed to trade 5 stations to Clear Channel.¹³ Bids for the auction were due in September 2008; deals will continue into 2009.(link to paragraph on clear channel agreement above)

Air America Radio

In 2008 Air America Radio was trying to build audience with a new owner. It filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code in 2006, only two years after going on the air as a liberal alternative to the many conservative-leaning talk radio shows in the country.

It was bought in 2007 for $4.25 million and restructured by a New York real estate investor, Stephen Green. Green is a brother of Mark Green, a longtime fixture in Democratic politics in New York City and a frequent guest on the network.

In 2008, Air America had 63 affiliate stations across the country.¹⁴

Footnotes

1. Sirius and XM press release, February 19, 2007

2. Statement of Commissioner Robert M. McDowell Re: Applications for Consent to the Transfer of Control of Licenses, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., Transferor, to Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., Transferee, MB Docket No. 07-57. The 13% that PEJ cited above refers to the portion of the population over the age of 12 that subscribes to satellite radio, according to Arbitron. The 5% cited by the commissioner here refers to a measurement of market share.

3. www.sirius.com/whastonsirius

4. www.xmradio.com/news/index.xmc

5. David Lieberman, “Clear Channel CEO says going private will allow firm to focus on listeners,” USA Today, November 16, 2006

6. In the BIA database formats are self-reported by each radio station and many stations identify themselves as more than one format such as news/talk/sports. The number of news/talk stations here includes all stations that identified themselves as news or talk; it includes stations that may have identified themselves as having an additional third or fourth format.

7. CC Media Holdings Press release, November 10, 2008

8. Reuters, “Cumulus Agrees to $1.3 billion buyout,” New York Times, July 24, 2007

9. SEC Filing May 12, 2008.

10. “Heavy Debt, Fewer Ads Put Radio Firms in a Squeeze,” Sarah McBride, Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2008

11. Arbitron, Radar 98 report, September 2008

12. Westwood Press release March 2008

13. “Clear Channel to trade Houston stations to CBS,” San Antonio Business Journal, December 15, 2008. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/stories/2008/12/15/daily6.html

14. http://airamerica.com/stations

Talk Radio

Introduction

The 2008 election campaign may have seemed like unfriendly terrain for the nation’s conservative talk radio hosts. In the Republican primary season, some of the top talkers backed Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson over the eventual nominee, John McCain. And despite their energetic and staunch opposition to Barack Obama, the Democrat handily won the Nov. 4 election.

But the dominance of conservative talkers appeared unaffected by the nation’s apparent tilt leftward at the ballot box. And going forward, talk radio will once again find itself as an oppositional medium, the same posture it had during the 1990s.

From the left, efforts to add liberal-leaning voices to the airwaves continue to prove halting at best and 2008 offered little encouragement. Several leading talkers on the left actually lost audience even as Democrats were mounting their comeback at the polls.

There was more evidence of the power of talk radio generally as a medium, however. The number of radio stations that carry at least some talk shows, which includes everything from political talk to advice shows, grew by a third in 2008, to 2,056 from 1,370 the year before, according to Inside Radio magazine.¹

And the total audience for talk radio grew slightly, too, to 48 million people, up 2% from 47 million in 2007, according to data from Arbitron.²

The genre’s origins date as far back as the medium itself, with talk being a cheap and easily produced format for radio programs. But the phenomenon of highly politicized talk radio hosts is modern.

The current age of talk radio was ushered in with the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. The repeal freed stations from an obligation to offer equal representation to viewpoints. It also eliminated the costly mandate for radio stations to cover issues of local importance. (See sidebar for more info)

Talk Personalities

Many of the leading conservative talk hosts had audience growth in 2008, beginning with Rush Limbaugh, the modern godfather of the genre. Limbaugh’s average weekly audience, which had shrunk after hitting an all-time high in 2003, rebounded to nearly its old level. For the year, according to Talkers Magazine, Limbaugh reached a weekly audience of 14.25 million in 2008, up from 13.5 million the previous two years. That was just shy of his peak of 14.5 million in 2003.

Limbaugh’s immediate future also seems secure. In July 2008 he signed an eight-year contract with Clear Channel for $38 million a year.

Limbaugh’s biggest rival for audience is fellow conservative Sean Hannity, who also hosts a successful cable television show on Fox News.

Hannity also gained listeners in 2008, continuing a growth trend, but he still has not quite reached Limbaugh’s levels. Hannity’s weekly audience grew from 11.75 million in 2003 to 12.5 million in 2007. In 2008, he added almost a million listeners, hitting 13.25 million. That puts him one million, or 7%, behind than Limbaugh.

Other conservatives also picked up listeners in the election year. Michael Savage and Laura Schlessinger increased their audiences to 8.25 million each, up from 8 million in 2007. The biggest winner was Glenn Beck, who increased his audience to 6.75 million, from 5 million in 2007.

The news was not so good for liberals. They continued to lag behind, with some prominent ones actually losing audience.

The biggest syndicated liberal talker, Ed Schultz, was down to 3 million listeners, from 3.25 million in 2007, according to the data from Talkers Magazine. Randi Rhodes was down to 1 million, from 1.5 million in 2007.

Three other liberal talkers -- Lionel, Stephanie Miller and Alan Colmes -- all had their audiences remain stable at 1.5 million each.³

Don Imus returned to the air in December 2007 after being fired by CBS earlier that year for making controversial remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team (See last year's report for more information on this incident). Before his firing, he was pulling in 2.5 million listeners a week. As of spring 2008, more than a year later, his audience on ABC radio was not quite back to that, but he was being heard by 1.75 million, putting him at No. 13 on Talkers Magazine’s list of top talkers.

Air America host Rachel Maddow made the jump to television, landing a spot on MSNBC immediately following fellow liberal host Keith Olbermann. Maddow continues to host her radio show in addition to her show on MSNBC

Talk Show Hosts Making News

Several talk show hosts also made news as well as talked about it in 2008.

Among those most affected was Randi Rhodes. She got into hot water in March 2008, for delivering a profanity-laced rant at a comedy club against Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton.⁴ Air America suspended her in response and she reacted by resigning from the network.

Rhodes defended herself in an appearance on – what else? – a talk show. She told Larry King on CNN on April 10 that her remarks were delivered at a stand-up comedy event and that she has every right to say what she did: “It's absolutely 100 percent pure stand-up, Larry. It was a Saturday night in San Francisco in a club. It was me on a stage with a microphone doing stand-up.”⁵

Rhodes was off the air for only a few weeks, joining the Nova M Radio syndicate on April 14, 2008. But it cost her 50% of her audience after she made the switch.

In February 2009 Nova M Radio was forced to file for bankruptcy liquidation and early in the month Randi Rhodes quite Nova M citing on her website a “failure to correct an unspecified problem.”

According to the Wallstreet Journal Ms. Rhodes expected Nova M to cover some legal costs for her, and when she found out that they would not she left the network.⁶

On the right, several conservative talkers were in the news in 2008 for unusual criticism of a fellow conservative. Three of the top ones— Limbaugh, Hannity, and Laura Ingraham— all expressed strong reservations about John McCain as the Republican candidate for president, reflecting the discontent McCain engendered among conservatives. On January11, 2008, Hannity said: “If you ask me who are the two more liberal candidates in the Republican primary, I would say, it’s John McCain and Mike Huckabee.”⁷

After McCain became his party’s nominee for president, the hosts publicly supported him –- though with varying degrees of enthusiasm. As Limbaugh said: “It’s like the Super Bowl. If your team isn’t in it, you root for the team you hate less. That’s McCain.”⁸

Black talk radio also saw a boost from the election year with Barack Obama making some appearances on black talk shows and with black talk radio hosts being in high demand for cable pundits. (See the Ethnic Chapter of this report for more information)

Top Talk Radio Hosts
Weekly Cume in Millions

		2008	2007	2006	2003
Rush Limbaugh	Conservative	14.25	13.5	13.5	14.5
Sean Hannity	Conservative	13.25	12.5	12.5	11.74
Michael Savage	Conservative	8.25	8	8.25	7
Dr. Laura Schlessinger	Conservative/General Advice	8.25	8	8	8.5
Laura Ingraham	Conservative	5.5	5	5	1.25
Glenn Beck	Conservative	6.75	5	3	*
Neal Boortz	Conservative	4.25	4	3.75	2.5
Mark Levin	Conservative	5.5	4	1	NA
Dave Ramsey	Financial Advice	4.5	4	2.75	*
Mike Gallagher	Conservative	4	3.75	3.75	2.5
Michael Medved	Conservative	4	3.75	2.25	*
Jim Bohannon	Ind./Moderate	3.5	3.25	3.25	4
Clark Howard	Consumer Advocacy	3.25	3.25	3.25	2.5
Bill O'Reilly	Conservative	3.5	3.25	3.25	1.75
Dough Stephen	Ind./Moderate	3.5	3.25	3.25	2
Ed Schultz	Liberal	3	3.25	2.25	NA

Source: Talkers magazine, “Top Talk Personalities,” Spring 2008
Note: * = Information unavailable; NA = Talk host not nationally broadcast

Talk Radio Demographics

Listeners to talk radio are not a cross-sampling of America and are somewhat similar to the news/talk audience. They are more likely to be male than female (63.4% vs. 36.6%). They also tend to be, on average, more educated than the general population. About 75% have some college education, according to Arbitron.⁹

Listeners to talk radio also tend to be older than those listening to other formats. Only 5% are between the ages of 18 and 24, and 80.2% are over the age of 35.

The good news for advertisers is that the talk radio audience is relatively affluent, with 45.6% making more than $75,000 per year and only 9.6% making less than $25,000.¹⁰

While the demographics of news/talk and talk radio are the same, talk radio programming is driven by ideology and attracts more ideological listeners.

According to the Pew Research Center for People & the Press, conservative Republicans make up 28% of talk radio’s audience, compared to only 17% of the general public who identify themselves as conservative Republicans. Moderate Republicans make up 13%, moderate Democrats make up 13% and liberal Democrats make up 20% of talk radio’s audience.¹¹

Footnotes

1. Inside Radio, format counts

2. Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio,” 2008 Edition, March 12, 2008

3. Talkers Magazine, Top Talk Radio Audiences, September 2008

4. Air America Radio press release, April 3, 2008.

5. Sarah McBride, “Liberal Nova M Radio to File for Liquidation,” The Wall Street Journal, February 19,2009

6. Sean Hannity, the Sean Hannity Show, January 11, 2008

7. Zev Chaefts, “Late-Period Limbaugh,” New York Times Magazine, July 6, 2008

8. “Radio Today 2008 Edition,” Arbitron, March 12, 2008

9. Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio,” 2008 Edition, March 12, 2008

10. “Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey,” Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008

11. Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show, November 4, 2008

12. Bob Cusack, “Schumer on Fox: Fairness Doctrine ‘fair and balanced,’ ” The Hill, November 4, 2008

13. Sean Hannity, the Sean Hannity Show, November 26, 2008

14. Peter Winn, “Democratic Senator Tells Conservative Radio Station He’d Re-impose Fairness Doctrine — on Them,” CNSNEWS.com, October 22, 2008.