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Radio
Intro
By the Project for Excellence in Journalism
News remains an important part of what was once simply called radio. In many ways, indeed, the tradition of listening to the news — aural transmission is the original way people got news — is among the most enduring.
But the radio business is undergoing no less of a revolution than any other part of media. The audience is fragmenting across new listening platforms. The revenue models are unclear, and which technology will emerge is uncertain.
What we once knew as radio is now something more complex and in many ways more interesting. In addition to the AM and FM dials, now there is satellite, HD, Internet, MP3s, podcasting, and increasingly, cell phones.
In 2007, the audience for traditional radio continued to slip some. But AM/FM listening still reached 93% of the population over 12 years old, down less than two percentage points overall since 2000.
At the same time, the audiences for new audio continue to grow. The numbers are still small. And it may be that a technology that has not yet become a major factor — cell phones — could in the end be a dominant one. Much more change, in other words, is to come.
Financially, the industry faces large challenges, leading to experimentation and change. Radio is finally putting more resources into the Web, into social networking, on-demand news features and portable Internet radio equipment. Online revenue is growing, but not dramatically.
Some companies, partly in reaction, continued to move toward privatization. Clear Channel, the largest radio concern, started the trend in 2006, and had nearly completed the move by selling off some of its stations by the end of 2007. Cumulus Media signaled its intent to move toward private ownership in 2007 as well.
With fragmentation, moreover, comes variety. Even the content of traditional broadcast radio is now remarkably varied, depending on the source. Public radio thrives. News headlines, our content analysis suggests, provide an important and diverse source of information — and are far more than anchors reading wire copy. Talk radio, meanwhile, is something quite distinct from traditional news, and narrows, not broadens, the agenda.
What seems safest is the idea that listening to news and information is likely to endure, even thrive. But the shape of that is both changing rapidly and in other ways changing very little.
Content Analysis
By the Project for Excellence in Journalism
One of the big events in the pre-primary phase of the presidential campaign was an October 30, 2007, debate in Philadelphia where then-frontrunner Hillary Clinton experienced the first concentrated attacks from her Democratic rivals.
In the media generally, according to the Project’s News Coverage Index, the campaign that week accounted for about one-sixth of all the news coverage, and much of that acknowledged the rough-and-tumble nature of that debate. The New York Times reported that Clinton came under “withering attack” on everything from “candor” to “electability.” “After getting punched around in Tuesday’s Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton is still acting tough,” NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported.
But in the world of talk radio, the Philadelphia debate was the starter’s gun for something much bigger. The talkers devoted more than 40% of their airtime to the campaign that week. And for them, Clinton wasn’t just a combatant in that debate. She was the big loser.
“She’s blowing this big time… playing the gender card,” declared conservative host Rush Limbaugh, who was responding to complaints from the Clinton camp that her rivals had ganged up on her. Added conservative radio talker and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity: “Last night’s debate in Philadelphia may soon become known as the great Hillary debacle.” Clinton even got whacked by syndicated liberal host Ed Schultz, who accused her of “whining.”
In many ways, the Philadelphia encounter was a classic example of how talk radio operated, at least in 2007, according to an examination of the top talk radio shows throughout the year.
One clear finding of this examination is that the major personalities in the medium tend to seize on a few major news events each week and amplify them for their own purposes. Many weeks, the top stories in the media generally are roughly twice as big in the talk radio universe.
Generally, those events are then run through an ideological filter and used to create a narrative about good guys and bad guys, winners and losers. That process is fairly similar among both liberal and conservative hosts. It is, at its core, a medium of three P’s–personality, persuasion and polarization.
These are just some of the findings of this study, which included almost 220 hours of talk radio content from 2007, some 4,100 different segments, from five of the leading hosts on both sides of the ideological spectrum.
Among other findings:
In its modern incarnation in the past two decades, talk radio has been a business dominated by conservative voices. While that is still true, liberals have begun to make their mark in the industry in recent years, and the 2004 launch of the Air America network, despite its problems, appears to have helped.As part of its weekly News Coverage Index in 2007, the Project examined the first 30 minutes of the programs from the three conservative talk hosts with the biggest audiences according to Talkers Magazine — Rush Limbaugh (estimated 13.5 million listeners a week), Sean Hannity (12.5 million) and Michael Savage (8 million.) On the Democratic side, the Project looked at two leading liberal hosts, Ed Schultz (3.25 million) and Randi Rhodes (1.5 million).
Talk Radio’s Amplification
The most striking characteristic of talk radio is its tendency for hosts to seize on the news and amplify those events. The hosts might suggest they are analyzing them, or offering a deeper level of clarity and truthfulness. Critics might suggest the hosts are not so much reporting the news as exploiting it.
Whatever one’s view, talk radio tends to amplify the handful of stories best suited to debate and division. Typical was the week of May 13-18, 2007, when several important events — Congressional votes on Iraq war funding, the death of Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell, the immigration bill, the second Republican presidential debate, and a deadly ambush in Iraq — were all part of the five leading stories in the mainstream media. Each one consumed between 5% and 10% of the newshole and together, they constituted 40% of the week’s overall coverage.
Top 5 Stories for the Week of May 13-18, 2007 |
Percent of Newshole |
 |
|
Source: PEJ, A Year in the News, 2007 |
On the radio talk shows, however, just three of those stories — the Iraq policy debate, the campaign and immigration — consumed 50% of the airtime. Many of the other stories of the week got short shrift.
That same trend is evident over time. The top-two broad topic areas in talk radio in 2007 — elections/politics and the media — by themselves filled 44% of the airtime studied over the year. They made up 16% of the overall press coverage.
Four topics accounted for nearly two-thirds of all the time on talk radio -- politics/elections, media, U.S. foreign policy and government -- about 60% more than they did in the media generally.
Top Broad Story Topics: Talk Radio vs. Media Overall
Percent of Newshole
| Talk Radio | Media Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Election/ Politics | 28% | U.S. Foreign Affairs | 17% |
| Media | 16 | Elections/Poltics | 13 |
| U.S. Foreign Affairs | 12 | Foreign (Non U.S.) | 11 |
| Government | 8 | Crime | 7 |
| Crime | 4 | Government | 6 |
| Immigration | 4 | Disasters/Accidents | 5 |
| Lifestyle | 3 | Health/Medicine | 4 |
| Additional Domestic Affairs | 3 | Economics | 4 |
| Environment | 3 | Lifestyle | 3 |
| Miscellaneous | 2 | Business | 3 |
The agenda also differed in its nature.
A major focus of talk radio is the media itself, including the talk radio hosts talking about themselves as victims of attack. Media, the No. 2 talk subject of the year, filled 16% of airtime studied, about six times as much as in the media over all (3%). Elections/politics at 28% was the No. 1 talk topic of the year compared to 13% and No. 2 over all in the media.
Foreign events that did not involve the U.S. directly were largely absent in the discussion on talk radio (2% of time studied compared to 11% in the media over all). Crime, the No. 4 story at 7% in the media over all, was No. 5 on talk radio, but only about half as big at 4%.
Talk radio, however, is also notable for the degree to which, at least in the hours studied, it was not much concerned with two classic elements of the tabloid media formula — crime and celebrity. Those two topics made up about 5% of time studied in talk radio, half of the 10% of the media over all.
This tendency toward amplification also means that the talk radio is particularly narrow. The combined coverage of the legal system, business, transportation, education, and science and technology, accounted for a mere 2% of the talk radio airtime in 2007. The media over all, which still did not cover them extensively, devoted 7% to those issues last year.
In a year in which we have concluded that the media agenda in general was narrow, talk radio focused on an even smaller slice of that pie.
Top Stories : Talk Radio vs. Media Overall
Percent of Newshole
| Talk Radio | Media Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 Campaign | 17% | 2008 Campaign | 11% |
| Iraq Policy Debate | 12 | Iraq Policy Debate | 8 |
| Immigration | 4 | Events in Iraq | 6 |
| Global Warming | 3 | Immigration | 3 |
| Iran | 3 | Iran | 2 |
| U.S. Domestic Terrorism | 2 | U.S. Domestic Terrorism | 2 |
| New Democratic Congress | 2 | U.S. Economy | 2 |
| Valerie Plame Investigation | 2 | Iraq Homefront | 2 |
| Fired U.S. Attorneys | 2 | Pakistan | 2 |
| Events in Iraq | 1 | Fired U.S. Attorneys | 1 |
News Through the Prism of Ideology:
On March 29, 2007, former Justice Department official Kyle Sampson offered damning testimony about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, telling Congress that Gonzales was more involved in the firings of U.S. attorneys than he had acknowledged.
On the talk radio airwaves, liberal talk hosts Ed Schultz and Randi Rhodes eagerly jumped on the Gonzales story. In the airtime examined by PEJ, conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage uttered barely a peep on the matter.
Almost two months later, the announcement of a compromise on immigration legislation galvanized conservative radio hosts who labeled it an “amnesty” bill. Sean Hannity declared that “you cannot begin your career or life as an American by first breaking the law.” Michael Savage said: “We’re not giving away the sovereignty of America. This is the Alamo right now.”
On that subject, their liberal counterparts were virtually silent.
It comes as no surprise that liberal and conservative hosts would have sharply differing views on the war in Iraq or the presidential race or a host of other subjects. But another way in which the ideological wars on talk radio play out is through the selection of stories themselves. In an industry in which hosts much prefer to attack the enemy rather than defend the ally, ideology determines what subjects are even up for discussion.1
Immigration, a hot-button issue for many conservatives, was the third-biggest topic (at 6%) in conservative talk radio in 2007, right behind the campaign and the Iraq policy debate. Liberal talkers were much less interested, devoting only 1% of their airtime to what was their 10th-most popular story. The third-hottest story among liberal talkers (4%) was domestic terrorism, as they criticized the Bush administration on issues such as torture and electronic surveillance. Conservatives, who tended to back White House policy on terrorism, devoted only 1% of their airtime to that subject.
Not surprisingly, liberal hosts were far chattier about the U.S. attorney firings and the Valerie Plame/CIA leak case that led to the conviction of Vice President Cheney’s aide, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby Jr., since both were embarrassing to the administration. The arrest of Larry Craig, the conservative Republican Senator accused of sexual overtures to an undercover police officer, was also a much hotter topic on liberal talk.
Story Selection in 2007 |
Conservative vs. Liberal Talk Radio |
 |
Source: PEJ, A Year in the News, 2007 |
Conversely, conservative talkers spent a lot more time on the subject of global warming — criticizing its chief advocates, particularly Al Gore. They also invested much more energy on the new Democratic-led Congress, whose leaders, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were a frequent target for criticism.
And then there is the Hillary Clinton factor. Her history with the conservative talk hosts goes back to the 1990’s when she was First Lady and presided over an unsuccessful attempt to remake the nation’s health care system. (Conservative talk radio’s ascendancy coincided to a significant extent with Bill Clinton’s 1992 election and the hosts decided to make his administration a primary target.) Ever since Hillary Clinton’s January 2007 announcement that she intended to follow in her husband’s footsteps, she has been a prime subject on talk radio, more specifically a prime target of conservative talkers.
For the first five months of 2007, Clinton generated almost three times as many segments on conservative talk radio than any other candidate, a PEJ report on early election coverage found. And 86% of those segments on the conservative air waves about her were negative in tone. In that period, she did not fare particularly well on the liberal talk radio either, but was a far less frequent topic of discussion. A study of the summer months of 2007 found that Clinton was a lead newsmaker in more than four times as many talk radio segments on the campaign as the next closest candidate, Barack Obama. And again, it was largely conservative talk radio’s fixation with her driving that coverage.
Discussing some purported problems with the Clinton campaign on a December edition of his show, Rush Limbaugh opted for a Wizard of Oz wicked witch analogy. People have been e-mailing all morning “asking me ‘Do you believe it’s the end for Hillary?’ ” Limbaugh remarked on Dec. 14. “Until I see the house fall on her… and the legs curl up [and] the body in the casket, she is not dead, she is not finished.”
That ethos was also summed up by Hannity, who during the campaign nicknamed his program The Stop Hillary Express.
Conservative Talk and the Immigration Jihad
The ability of talk hosts to influence voters may be an open question, but on one important legislative matter in 2007, the conservative hosts seemed to have had an impact. In the six weeks between the May 17 introduction of immigration legislation and the bill’s June 28 demise, the talk hosts were in the forefront of a relentless assault on the measure. Day in and day out, Limbaugh, Hannity and Savage — with considerable help from CNN’s Lou Dobbs — railed against the immigration bill and its supporters. So intense was the barrage that among conservative radio hosts, the immigration debate was the No. 1 topic in the second quarter, filling 16% of the airtime. (The second-biggest topic was the presidential campaign at 13%).
What made the conservative talkers’ war on the immigration bill more noteworthy was their willingness to butt heads with some key Republicans who had often been allies, including President George Bush. So exasperated was Republican Senator Trent Lott that he complained openly during the immigration debate that “talk radio is running America.”
That only made Lott a bigger target. “What are we going to do about Mississippi Senator Trent Lott... one of the engineers of the Senate immigration bill, the amnesty bill?” Limbaugh asked his listeners. “Senator Lott’s out there saying the problem with this is talk. Now what does that mean?”
On his radio program, Hannity defended his stance by drawing firm distinctions between conservatives and Republicans. “We stand up for our principles regardless of any party affiliation,” he said. “We find ourselves now at odds with Republicans for one reason and one reason only…. They keep compromising their values.”
That was same argument that conservative talk hosts would make later in explaining their campaign against John McCain, who became the Republican party’s presidential nominee but was deemed too liberal for their tastes.
Differences among Hosts of the Same Ideology:
The conservatives:
Naturally, the most obvious arguments and differences are between the liberal and conservative talk hosts. But a close examination also reveals that there are some significant differences among talkers of the same ideologies.
In terms of news agendas, there were some noticeable differences among the three big conservative hosts. Hannity is most clearly a Washington creature, spending 45% of the first half hour of his program on the topic of politics/campaigns. That is about 150% as much attention as Limbaugh gave the subject in his top 30 minutes and nearly three times as much coverage as Savage offered. Savage, in contrast, whose program has more in-your-face vitriol, seems more culture-oriented and less political. Topics such as lifestyle, immigration, religion, race and gender all get more time on his 30 minutes of air-time (23%) than from Limbaugh (8%) or Hannity (9%). Limbaugh is harder to pin down, but in some ways encompasses, with more wit and less overt anger, combinations of both. But the differences that often stand out the most are stylistic. Limbaugh is a godfather of modern conservative talk and a very influential figure in conservative circles. (Many credited him with a role in the conservative revolution that swept the Republicans into power in the 1994 Congressional elections and he is often characterized as the leading representative of the talk-show wing of the Republican Party.)
Limbaugh’s on-air style is relaxed, conversational and flecked with humor, or at least sarcasm. He has a considerable skill for self-promotion and injecting himself into the middle of major political controversies, a classic example being the “phony soldiers” furor that erupted in September 2007. At the time, Democrats were smarting over congressional resolutions condemning an ad from the liberal group, MoveOn.org, characterizing the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, as “General Betray Us.” In a September 26 on-air phone conversation about anti-war sentiment, a caller said that media “never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.” Limbaugh interrupted, saying, “the phony soldiers.” Limbaugh’s use of the term “phony soldiers” was quickly attacked as an effort to discredit troops who might express doubts about the war and Democrats in Congress introduced a measure condemning the talk host.
Limbaugh countered that his “phony soldiers” remark referred only to one veteran who had fabricated stories about Iraq atrocities. And in a creative response to this dispute, Limbaugh took the letter of complaint about him signed by 41 Democratic senators and auctioned it on eBay, with Limbaugh matching the top bid and the money going to charity. The final bid: $2.1 million. On his show, Limbaugh played a clip of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a major critic in the “phony soldiers” battle, actually lauding the Limbaugh auction as “worthwhile cause.” It was typical of Limbaugh’s knack for making himself part of the story.
Younger and newer on the scene than Limbaugh, Hannity, not only has the bully pulpit of a syndicated talk radio show, but is also co-host of the Fox News Channel’s nightly Hannity & Colmes show where he faces off against liberal Alan Colmes. Hannity and Limbaugh seem quite close on many issues and they spent much of the year battering Hillary Clinton. Almost in sync, they both shifted targets as the Republican primary fight went on, becoming sharply critical of John McCain and Mike Huckabee for being too liberal and thus, becoming the favorite Republican candidates of the liberal mainstream media. Their preferred Republican candidates clearly were Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney, two politicians who dropped out after failing to meet expectations.
The differences between Hannity and Limbaugh appear to be more about style than substance. Hannity tends to be more overtly pugnacious and direct, purveying more of a street-fighting sensibility than Limbaugh, who tends to favor more linguistically intricate soliloquies and ornate reasoning.
The real wildcard among conservative talkers is the San Francisco-based Savage, who is more of a contrarian and loose cannon than either Limbaugh or Hannity. On occasion, he has even taken what can only be characterized as a liberal view of an issue.
When Haliburton, the big military contractor once led by Dick Cheney, decided to open a headquarters in Dubai, Limbaugh defended the decision, charging that the company “is one of the footballs kicked around by the mad, insane left.” But Savage, who attacked the move as an example of the unfettered power of big business, played a clip of President Eisenhower’s famous speech warning of the rise of a “military-industrial complex.” When a student was subdued with a Taser while being disruptive during a John Kerry appearance at the University of Florida, Savage called the campus police “fascist,” and declared that “I don’t want to live in a country where even a left-wing student gets tasered for asking a question.” Savage also remarked that making Barry Bonds the villain in baseball’s steroid scandal “looks like racism to me,” in effect making a classic liberal argument by using a charge of racism in Bonds’ defense .
At the same time, the volcanic Savage is more likely than any host to explode and use scorched-earth rhetoric to make his points. He once likened the wave of immigration in the U.S. to the battle at the Alamo and on another occasion, predicted that many liberals would “die in their own vomit.” He expressed disappointment that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi “was not gutsy enough” to make an obscene gesture to Syrian President Bashar Assad on a trip to Damascus. And he denounced those who questioned General David Petraeus during a Congressional hearing as “those slimy, backstabbing, anti-American scum called Democrats.”
Other aspects of Savage’s behavior are unorthodox as well. To protest the media’s extensive coverage of the tabloid Anna Nicole Smith saga, he began reading on the air from “Once Upon a Time in the Catskills” a memoir about the summer of 1958 designed to hark back to a simpler, more innocent time in America. To honor the passing of tenor Luciano Pavarotti, he played classical music, something you don’t usually hear on talk radio.
Top Stories : Conservative Talk Hosts
Percent of Newshole
| Host | Story Rank 1 | Story Rank 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rush Limbaugh | 2008 Campaign | 19% |
Iraq Policy Debate | 12% |
| Sean Hannity | 2008 Campaign | 33% |
Iraq Policy Debate | 10% |
| Michael Savage | Immigration | 9% |
Iraq Policy Debate | 8% |
The liberals:
On the liberal/Democratic side, the North Dakota-based Schultz and New Yorker Rhodes are distinct from each other as well.
First, there were some differences in news agendas. At 18% of the first 30 minutes of his airtime in 2007, Schultz devoted more than twice the attention to the 2008 campaign than Rhodes did (8%). Rhodes was more concerned with the two leading threads of the Iraq war — the policy debate and events inside Iraq — than Schultz, devoting 19% of her newshole to those subjects compared with 13% for Schultz.
But the biggest contrast between the two is stylistic, with Schultz’ moderate Midwestern mores clashing with Rhodes’s Brooklyn brashness and ideological bomb-throwing.
One example of their divergent approaches was the reaction to news that Larry Craig, a conservative Republican Senator from Idaho, had been arrested for making a sexual overture to an undercover police officer in a Minneapolis airport. Rhodes went on the offensive, accusing Craig of being an “anti-homosexual homosexual” and attacking his Republican colleagues who quickly distanced themselves from him as hypocrites. For Schultz, the issue was far different. “The thing that bothers me the most about the Craig thing is that something happened with law enforcement and it went unreported to the Ethics Committee or Republican leadership,” he said. Craig “shouldn’t have the liberty… to be able to hide an arrest.”
Top Stories : Liberal Talk Hosts
Percent of Newshole
| Host | Story Rank 1 | Story Rank 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ed Schultz | 2008 Campaign | 18% | Iraq Policy Debate | 12% |
| Rhandi Rhodes | Iraq Policy Debate | 15% | 2008 Campaign | 8% |
On another show, Schultz announced that he liked all the Democratic candidates, the kind of positivity one usually does not here on talk radio. “There isn’t one up there I wouldn’t vote for,” he said. “I’m just a big cheerleader today, aren’t I?”
Rhodes’ elbows and rhetoric are often sharper. She dubbed the First Lady “Crazy Eyes Laura Bush” and voiced her opinion that Bush “had a face lift.” She mocked John McCain’s assertion that the security situation inside Iraq had improved by declaring that during his stay in Iraq “John McCain had more bodyguards with him than P. Diddy getting to the MTV Awards.” At one point, she voiced her displeasure at General Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker by characterizing them as a “tag team of liars.”
Rhodes was involved in a strange drama back in October, when she suffered significant facial injuries in a fall in New York City. The next day, another liberal host told listeners that Rhodes had been assaulted and raised the specter of a deliberate attack by “the right-wing hate machine.” Rhodes then returned to the airwaves and said that “I don’t know if someone hit me from behind or if I just fainted.” She was not able to clear up the mystery, but the episode offered further proof that in talk radio, everything is about politics.
Radio News Headlines: Brief but Broad
When the 5 o’clock CBS News aired on April 16, 2007, the depth of that day’s tragedy had become clear. In the worst shooting incident in American history, a murderous rampage had left 33 people dead on the campus of Virginia Tech. The newscast led with an update from the scene, followed by a White House reaction from President Bush and devoted a full two minutes to the story, a very long time for the briskly paced radio headlines format.
But even with Virginia Tech dominating, the five-minute newscast featured seven stories that quickly traversed the news landscape—including a jury verdict for a Hurricane Katrina victim; questions about an arthritis drug; Boston Marathon race results; closing stock prices; a terrorism-related trial in Miami; and fears of a cell phone-transmitted virus in Afghanistan.
That newscast offered a smorgasbord of news topics typical of the platform: crime, domestic events, medicine, sports, economics and foreign affairs.
In 2007, the Project for Excellence in Journalism examined these top-of-the-hour radio newscasts from CBS and ABC and found that in their own way, they were models of diversity, brevity and efficiency. These headline services — usually marking the top of the hour on radio talk, news and information stations — are an important force in radio in America, a primary source of news for stations of all kinds of spectrums. And in the hundreds of stations around the country that categorize themselves as “news and talk,” such as the ones that carry major talk show hosts, these headlines represent the news.
In general, the study finds, they offer an impressively broad if quick look at the day’sevents, Cliff Notes to the news. What is absent is depth, any kind of nuanced analysis or comparison of multiple angles on any given issues. But the sense of scale, or ordering of news by importance, is more often found here in the headlines than on the talk programs that often follow.
The news headlines are designed for their well-defined niche, serving time-pressed commuters in their cars, multi-tasking homemakers in the kitchen or those that want to listen mostly to music while still being plugged into the news of the day. They are straightforward and delivered without attitude or agenda.
For all the terrain they cover in a short period, these newscasts are more than rip-and-read exercises in which smooth-sounding anchors regurgitate news or wire stories. The Project’s examination of these reports found that the largest component, 46% of the airtime, consisted of prepared news packages in 2007, often with reporters from the field and with sound “actualities” or quotes from sources. About 32% was made up of live comments or reporting from staff journalists. And only 21% of the time was spent with the anchor functioning as storyteller or reader.
Format of News Radio Headlines
Percent of Newshole
Format |
|
|---|---|
| Package | 46% |
| Staff Live | 32 |
| Anchor Read (Voice-over/Tell Story) | 21 |
| Interview | 1 |
| Live (Event or Ext. Live) | <1 |
When it comes to news agendas, one striking element of the radio headlines is the subject that did not get very much coverage, the 2008 presidential contest. In a year in which the media were consumed by the campaign, elections/politics was only the 10th-biggest topic area in the headlines, accounting for just 3% of all the airtime. By means of comparison, it was the No. 2 topic (at 13%) in the media over all for 2007 and in the world of talk radio elections/politics represented the top subject area, consuming 28% of the airtime.
Top Broad Story Topics: News Radio Headlines vs. Talk Radio vs. Media Overall
Percent of Newshole
| Rank | News Radio Headlines Only | All Talk | Media Overall | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | U.S. Foreign Affairs | 13% | Election/Politics | 28% | U.S. Foreign Affairs | 17% |
| 2 | Crime | 10 | Media | 16 | Elections/ Politics | 13 |
| 3 | Disasters/ Accidents | 10 | U.S. Foreign Affairs | 12 | Foreign (Non U.S.) | 11 |
| 4 | Economics | 10 | Government | 8 | Crime | 7 |
| 5 | Foreign (Non U.S.) | 7 | Crime | 4 | Government | 6 |
| 6 | Health/ Medicine | 7 | Immigration | 4 | Disasters/ Accidents | 5 |
| 7 | Government | 6 | Lifestyle | 3 | Health/ Medicine | 4 |
| 8 | Lifestyle | 5 | Additional Domestic Affairs | 3 | Economics | 4 |
| 9 | Miscellaneous | 4 | Environment | 3 | Lifestyle | 3 |
| 10 | Elections/ Politics | 3 | Miscellaneous | 2 | Business | 3 |
The trend toward limited coverage of the campaign was confirmed when the news headlines were analyzed more narrowly, by individual story rather than the more general topic category. The 2008 campaign was only fourth-biggest radio headlines story (filling 2% of the airtime), compared with No. 1 for the media over all (at 11% of the newshole) and No. 1 on talk radio (17%).
What the radio headlines do deliver is a broad and balanced news menu. U.S. international news, driven primarily by the war in Iraq, topped the topic list (filling 13% of the newshole). That was followed closely by crime (10%), disasters and accidents (10%), economics (10%), foreign events not related to the U.S. (7%) and health/medicine (7%).
That kind of balance in topic selection distinguishes the headlines from the media over all, with its heavier emphasis on three major categories — U.S. international news (17%), elections/politics (13%) and foreign non-U.S. (11%). And it represents a sea change from the world of talk radio, where the pre-occupation with elections/politics (28%) and media (16%) accounted for nearly half the newshole.
Looking at the radio headlines by their coverage of big stories, the editorial balance is even more obvious. The top story of the year, the policy debate over Iraq, was separated from the No. 10 story, rising gasoline prices, by a mere 6 percentage points.
Top Stories: News Radio Headlines vs. Talk Radio vs. Media Overall
Percent of Newshole
| Rank | News Radio Headlines Only | All Talk | Media Overall | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Iraq Policy Debate | 7% | 2008 Campaign | 17% | 2008 Campaign | 11% |
| 2 | Events in Iraq | 5 | Iraq Policy Debate | 12 | Iraq Policy Debate | 8 |
| 3 | U.S. Economy | 3 | Immigration | 4 | Events in Iraq | 6 |
| 4 | 2008 Campaign | 2 | Global Warming | 3 | Immigration | 3 |
| 5 | U.S. Domestic Terrorism | 2 | Iran | 3 | Iran | 2 |
| 6 | Iran | 2 | Domestic Terrorism | 2 | U.S. Domestic Terrorism | 2 |
| 7 | Fired U.S. Attorneys | 2 | New Democratic Congress | 2 | U.S. Economy | 2 |
| 8 | Iraq Homefront | 1 | Valerie Plame Investigation | 2 | Iraq Homefront | 2 |
| 9 | VA Tech Shooting | 1 | Fired U.S. Attorneys | 2 | Pakistan | 2 |
| 10 | Gas/Oil Prices | 1 | Events in Iraq | 1 | Fired U.S. Attorneys | 1 |
The attention given to rising gas prices, a story the public followed very closely this year, highlights another factor that distinguished the radio headlines. The headlines devoted a large portion of the newshole, 10%, to the subject of economics. (For the media over all in 2007, economics was the eighth-biggest subject, at 4%.) Some of that is the result of the dutiful daily reporting of the numbers on Wall Street. But given the fact that the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the slowing economy had by early 2008 emerged as a primary campaign topic, perhaps even eclipsing the Iraq war, the emphasis on economics suggests some solid news judgment at play.
Despite its ability to deliver a brisk news digest, there are natural limits to relying on radio headlines for the bulk of one’s news diet. The average length for a radio headlines story in 2007 studied by the Project for Excellence in Journalism was just under 25 seconds. And given that the lead story often gets more in-depth treatment, many of the others are reduced to quick synopses. On the evening of April 16, 2007, for example, the CBS broadcast devoted slightly more than two minutes to an update on the Virginia Tech tragedy. But five of the remaining six stories in that newscast each took less than 25 seconds. The three stories immediately following the Virginia Tech update on the ABC headlines service that day were each under 10 seconds in length.
While sometimes enhanced with live or taped reporting from the scene, the headline stories are still too brief to offer listeners much nuance or to evaluate complicated issues. A more detailed 2006 study of news in three markets in the U.S. found that most of these stories made almost no attempt to offer listeners much context, explore different elements or try to make any sense of how stories might affect them.2
Footnotes
1. Each day, on the conservative side, the PEJ studied the first 30 minutes of Rush Limbaugh’s show and rotated between the first half-hour of Sean Hannity’s and Michael Savage’s shows. On the liberal side, PEJ rotated between the first half-hour of Randi Rhodes’ program and Ed Schultz’s program each day. In total, the Project examined approximately 7.5 hours of talk radio per week.
2. See state of the News Media 2006, http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.com/2006/narrative_daymedia_radio.asp?cat=9&media=2.
Audience
By the Project for Excellence in Journalism
The audience for what was once called radio is rising — and fragmenting.
Heading into 2008, the big question is which, if any, of the new audio platforms —satellite radio, Internet radio, HD radio, podcasts, MP3/iPod listening or mobile phone radio — will come out on top. So far, no clear winners have emerged.
What we do know about the new technologies is that audience demographics and listening location are closely tied to certain audio devices.
The implication of all this is that the many audio devices are still in fierce competition for listeners, and for the advertising and subscription revenue that comes with them.
Research into ways to measure new audio’s growing audience has been slow to come together, despite benefits that both the industry and advertisers would likely receive from measuring Internet and HD listeners. No reliable method to capture total audience numbers has emerged. Hopes were high for the Portable People Meter, the long-awaited electronic measurement introduced by Arbitron, the radio ratings company, in March 2007 and rolling out across the country in 2008. Although its potential is considered strong, the technology is off to a troubled and uncertain start.
Broadcast Radio — Impressive Following
Traditional broadcast radio has maintained an impressive following, even among fans of new audio, though the numbers are falling slightly. According to Arbitron, traditional radio commanded a weekly audience of 93.3% of the population 12 and older as of the spring of 2007.6 This translates into nearly 233 million people over the age of 12 who tuned into the AM/FM dial at least once during an average week.7
That number represents a modest drop of 1.6 percentage points since the spring of 2000. The decline is relatively small compared with newspapers, network television and magazines that, like traditional radio, also face competition from new technologies.
Percentage of the Population 12 and Older, 1998-2007 |
 |
Source: Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platform,” April 19, 2007 |
And the listening patterns look fairly stable for the AM/FM dial in the foreseeable future. New audio listeners remain loyal to traditional radio. Nearly 8 of 10 podcast listeners (79%) and online radio listeners (77%), according to Arbitron survey data, say they would continue to listen to AM/FM radio as much as they do now.8 The number drops slightly for satellite radio listeners: seven out of ten subscribers anticipate maintaining their current levels of traditional radio listening.
These numbers, moreover, appear to be supported by others. A study by the media research group Bridge Ratings also found that AM/FM radio listening in the car has remained high, at 93% (down from 96% in 2004), despite competition from satellite radio and MP3 players.9 Furthermore, 75% of survey respondents said that traditional radio was the device they preferred to use most in the car.
Over the past three years, the radio industry has spent a lot of time and money promoting HD radio.10 But so far, it looks as if that effort has not translated into a radio audience big enough to compete with other new audio platforms. The audience for HD radio in 2007 was estimated to be 320,000 (compared with 13 million satellite radio listeners), up from 100,000 in 2005.11 Though this is a large increase, over 200%, the audience is very small .
The digital HD radio platform also offers features that other popular digital formats offer, such as the ability to record particular programs for later listening (the audio equivalent of TiVo) and providing scrolling textual data on the radio “dial” (like program information, artist/song names, weather/traffic updates).
The biggest stumbling block for rolling out HD radio seems to be access. In order to listen to the high-quality sound and multicast channels of HD radio, consumers have to invest in a radio that receives the special signals. In 2007, a modest HD radio cost about $150. Although that price has dropped significantly over the past two years, consumers still do not seem interested in paying that much for a single radio. Listening to HD radio in two locations – at home and in the car, for instance – would mean buying two units.
The trade-off for the initial high cost of access is that the resulting expanded digital dial is then absolutely free, unlike satellite radio, which comes with a monthly subscription fee (currently $12.95) in addition to the initial cost of the satellite receiver(s).
By the end of 2007, 1,629 HD radio stations were on the air and 466 more were licensed but not yet broadcasting.12 The number of HD stations skyrocketed in 2005, more than tripling from 152 in 2004 to 494. Since then, growth leveled off and has begun to decline. In 2006, 522 new stations were added. And only 394 stations went digital in 2007.
1999-2007 |
 |
Source: BIA Financial Network database, PEJ Research |
The growth of HD seems to be getting the public’s attention, though perhaps not yet their buy-in. Arbitron reports that more people had heard about HD radio at the beginning of 2007, compared with 2006 (26% vs. 14% in 2006).13 But increased awareness does not necessarily translate into more listeners. Just 29% of the public expressed interest in getting HD radio, down from the previous year’s total of 35%. Though interest is waning, HD radio has more reason to be optimistic about growth than satellite radio: Only 18% of people surveyed were interested in subscribing to satellite radio.
As the two providers of satellite radio service, Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Radio, await the verdict on their proposed merger, they continued to grow in 2007. But growth may not be enough to sustain either company.
According to company press releases, Sirius ended 2007 with 8.3 million subscribers, up 38% from 6 million in 2006. XM added 1.4 million subscribers, bringing its total to more than 9 million, an 18% increase from 2006.14
Though double-digit growth in audience may seem impressive for satellite radio, especially after only six years on the market, it still has not created a viable business model for either company.
At the outset of 2007, the companies announced their intent to merge, with Sirius Satellite Radio’s CEO, Mel Karmazin, leading the effort. It quickly became a regulatory battle, one still fiercely being waged in Congress at the end of the year. If the two companies are allowed to go forward with the plan, it may be a factor in how radio will be defined in the future – as individual types of competing audio platforms (terrestrial, satellite, HD, online), or as one medium that comprises all forms of listening. (See Ownership.)
Another sign of the uncertain future: Audience growth may be approaching a plateau. According to Arbitron, awareness of both XM and Sirius was almost flat compared with the previous year, 2006.15 In January 2007, 64% of the population 12 years and older said they had “heard of a satellite radio service called” XM radio, while 60% said the same of Sirius. This compares with 61% for both companies in January 2006.
1999-2007 |
 |
Source: Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platform,” April 19, 2007 |
According to the Arbitron survey, interest in satellite radio did not rise in 2007, another threat to sustaining audience growth. In a 2007 survey, only 3% said they would be “very likely” to subscribe to satellite radio services in the next 12 months.16 And 15% said they would be “somewhat likely.” This is nearly identical to attitudes in 2006, when 4% said they would be “very likely” to subscribe as of January 2006 and 14% said they would be “somewhat likely.”
Internet Radio – Stable Audience
The audience for Internet radio,17 which received a big bump in 2006, held steady in 2007.
In Arbitron’s April 2007 survey, 11% of Americans age 12 and older, or 29 million people, reported listening to online radio “last week,” about the same as the regular 2006 audience, 12%.18 And 40% of the population said they had ever listened to radio online. This suggests broad exposure to Internet radio, but perhaps not yet a steady and regular audience.
Though its audience size is far from overwhelming, it still helps offset the steady downward trickle of traditional radio listeners. Of those who had recently listened to Internet radio, 34% said they had heard a simulcast of a traditional AM/FM online station.19 More important, according to the Bridge Ratings Group, this number has gone up 41% from January 2007 to April 2007. Growth may be hindered however by a recent regulatory change that increased royalty fees for online radio providers. ( See Economics section for more details.)
This growth has been noted by some in the industry who believe radio’s digital push should focus on Internet radio rather than HD. John Hinnen, vice president for radio news programming at station CFTR 680 in Toronto, believes we will all be listening to the radio via the Internet in our cars in the not-so-distant future. Speaking to the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas in 2007, he suggested that news programmers offer listeners ways to personalize the news by creating music or news content from a vast menu of options.
That anytime-anywhere philosophy could have growth potential. As of 2007, the majority of Internet radio listening (52%) occurred at work, whereas most traditional AM/FM listeners tuned in from the car.20 But if wireless Internet was more universal, Internet radio could be freed from the computer.
To get some sense of wireless Internet availability, the CEO of American Media Services-Internet, Reed Bunzel and Laramie Guest, the company’s vice president for engineering, drove 100 miles – from San Jose, Calif., to San Francisco and back — in November 2007 while streaming radio from a laptop. They experienced a nearly flawless signal for the whole trip. Bunzel said, “The underlying incontrovertible truth is that Internet radio no longer is tied to a cable and a surge protector. It is just as portable as terrestrial radio, it doesn’t have to appeal to a mass audience, it can be personal and interactive in nature, and almost anyone can join the club.” 21 Whether this extent of steady streaming would be available in other parts of the county is questionable. Still, it does suggest the potential of wireless Internet radio.
The majority of online radio fans tend to listen about 10 to 14 hours a week.22 More than a quarter of Internet listeners (26%) tune in more than 15 hours a week and 12% of that group listens more than 20 hours a week. By comparison, listeners to traditional AM/FM radio spend an average of 19 hours tuned in.23
Podcasting/MP3 Players – Catching On?
The audience for MP3 players continues to grow at a brisk pace. As of early 2007, nearly a third of the American public (30%) over the age of 12 owned an iPod or other MP3 player, up from 22% the previous year.24
Small, sleek and portable, MP3 players were most popular with kids. More than half (54%) of 12- to 17-year-olds owned an iPod or other type of MP3 player at the beginning of 2007, up from 42% the previous year.
But, despite the prevalence of MP3 players, only 13% of people over the age of 12 —some 32 million — say they have ever listened to podcasts, that is, downloaded audio or video other than songs from the Internet for later consumption.
That may have more to do with the process than the content. The two-step process required to hear podcasts — accessing and downloading — may be the reason the digital platform has not caught on. According to Bridge Ratings, the main reasons people skip podcasts are because they just are not interested (46%) or they think it is “too complicated” (39%).25
Not surprisingly, younger audiences showed more interest in the technology. More than half (52%) of those who have ever listened to an audio podcast are under the age of 35.26
Cell Phone Radio – The New Frontier
Some predict that it won’t be Internet radio, HD radio, satellite radio, podcasting or MP3s that take over as the dominant new audio format, but cell phones and PDAs.The potential for cell phone radio to become the next “must-have” audio device is great, but so far, it is slow to take off.
Only a tiny slice of the population – 1% – already has purchased a device that would tune in local radio stations.27 Interest, however, is higher. Nearly one in three people are “very” or “somewhat” interested in having a cell phone with a radio function. But that leaves 65% who have no interest.
Still, the emergence of the cell phone nation is hard to ignore. Over 250 million people, or 82% of Americans, subscribed to some type of wireless service as of November 2007.28 This represents an increase of 352% since 1997. Not only is cell phone penetration high, but most calling plans offer customers substantial incentives to upgrade their cell phones every two years, ensuring a steady turnover of new gadgetry.
And according to the media research group Bridge Ratings, “Cell phone technology is the only audio-capable technology that could approach traditional radio’s market penetration.” 29
Underscoring this potential is how people feel about their cell phones: 44% said the devices have had a “big impact” on their lives.30 (In comparison, iPods come in at 25%).
2007 |
 |
Source: Arbitron, Edison Media Research Survey Question: “How much of an impact on your life has (name of platform/device) had? Where 5 = big impact and 1 = no impact |
What could this mean for radio? Wish lists from cell phone owners pointed to a demand for information solidly within the realm of radio. The services survey respondents preferred getting most on cell phones (other than phone calls and text messaging) were traffic reports (39%), music downloads (37%) and news/sports (28%).31 Fifteen percent said they were interested in having an AM/FM receiver on their phone, while 12% were interested in browsing the Internet and 13% in watching TV.
News on the AM/FM Dial
Like the audience for radio overall, the audience for news, talk and information is holding steady on the traditional AM/FM dial.
The percentage of people who listened to some kind of news, talk or information on their traditional radios during an average week was 16.1% in 2006.32 Of this overall figure, 1.4% listened to straight news on the “all news” format, 2.1% to “talk/personality” radio stations, 2.2% to an “all sports” format, and the largest group – 10.4% – tuned into a mixed format of “news/talk/information.”
Listening to the news continues to be an activity that older Americans prefer. In fact, every cohort except those between the ages 55 and 64 and those over 65 listened to the news less in 2006.
2000 - 2006 |
 |
Source: Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2007 Edition,” April 13, 2007 |
“News/talk/information” tended to be most popular in states in New England and the western regions of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast, as well as the West North Central and East North Central regions. In each region, the share of listeners to news/talk/information is greater than the national average of 10.4%. There was considerably less interest in the format in the southeastern part of the country, especially Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kentucky.
On average, people spent a little over nine hours a week listening to news/talk/information.33 This compared with a national average of 19 hours a week for all radio listening, regardless of format.
Most listening occurred at home (51.7%), followed by the car (34.2%) and work (12.8%).34 This diverged from the overall listening patterns (regardless of format), which were more evenly distributed – 39% at home, 34.8% in the car and 23.8% at work.
The News on ‘New Audio’
Are people using other new audio devices to tune into news and information? Yes, but to what extent is more difficult to answer.
With respect to HD Radio, news and talk dominated the digital dial in 2007, with 330 channels.35 On the AM/FM dial, news is the second-most-programmed format: In 2006, there were 1,503 news/talk/information stations, which were second to country stations at 1,704.36
The predominance of news on HD could be a result of a big push by the Corporation of Public Broadcasting to fund the transition of public radio stations from analog to digital. From 2002 to 2006, the Corporation of Public Broadcasting gave grants to 540 public radio stations for the digital conversion, and in 2006, it announced funding for 85 more stations.37 Because news is such a prevalent format for public radio, the grant program gave a boost to the number of news channels populating the HD radio dial.
 |
Source: BIA Financial Network database, PEJ Research |
Of the 330 news/talk/information stations broadcast on HD radio in 2007, 48 were multicast stations, which is to say they provide an additional news/talk channel new to the AM/FM dial. In a surveyed sample of managers and executives of these multicasting news/talk/information stations, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found the content largely comes from radio networks such as National Public Radio, the BBC, Public Radio International, American Public Media, talk host syndicates or already produced local content.
Many of those surveyed hoped to introduce unique local content, but lack of revenue is a shared obstacle. ( See Economics section for more details.) But immediate profits aside, the consensus was that HD radio is an investment worth making to build audiences.
For listeners who like to take their programming on the go via podcasts, the content most desired for downloading was news and commentary about technology. Coming in second and third were national news and local news/public affairs. Tech-savvy folk use their MP3 players to keep up on current affairs.
Interest in newsy podcasts also was reflected in the amount of programming available. According to Podcast Alley, which tracks podcast content and trends, of the 37,388 podcasts as of January 2008, some 993 were about news and politics.38 And of the top10 podcasts tracked in January, half focused on news and politics.
Percent Listening to Each Category |
 |
Source: Arbitron, “Public Radio Today, How America Listens to Public Radio,” July 12, 2007 Note: Percent of podcast users "very" interested in downloading podcasts |
Public Radio
When listeners tune in to public radio, news, generally, is what they want to hear.
These 32 million listeners tune in to stations providing content from public radio networks all over the country – such as National Public Radio, American Public Media and Public Radio International – and in eight formats.39 The format leader, by audience, is news/talk, followed by news-classical, classical music, jazz, news-music, adult album alternative /eclectic, news-jazz and variety music.
Nearly half of the audience share of public radio (43.6%) tuned in to the news and information format in 2006, the most recent year for which there are data.40 This is down slightly from the previous year (44.8%). Mixed news formats also command a major segment, adding to the overall influence of news. News-classical music, for instance, picked up 21.1% of the audience.41
News/talk audiences tend to be older, educated and affluent. Two-thirds (67.7%) are at least 45 years old, nearly three-quarters (71.6%) are college graduates and 52.6% have a household income over $75,000.42 The audience is nearly evenly split between male and female, although males show a slight preference for news/talk – 52% are male and 48% female. In contrast, commercial news/talk/information listeners are more male (56%), less educated (43.5% have college degrees (still a good deal higher than the 27% of the public over all) and less affluent (39.4% have incomes over $75,000) than public radio news listeners.43 Both public and commercial news radio audiences, however, tend to be older, with 70% of commercial news audiences at least 45 years old.
According to Adam Clayton Powell III44, a former news radio executive now at the University of Southern California, “Demographics of all-news radio are largely a function of its largely being a format on the AM band. When KSL and WTOP switched all-news from AM to FM, with identical programming, the average age dropped ten years.” The first station is in Salt Lake City and the second is in Washington, D.C.
Also, public radio, cognizant of aging audiences, has been working on ways to attract younger listeners. NPR began a new news program called “Bryant Park Project,” which appealed to younger audiences. ( See News Investment section.)
:Public Radio vs. Commercial News/Talk/Information, 2006 |
 |
Source: Arbitron, “Public Radio Today, How America Listens to Public Radio,” July 12, 2007, and Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2007 Edition,” April 13, 2007 |
Public radio news/talk listeners stretch across the country. Of the eight regions that Arbitron identified, the Pacific region of California, Oregon and Washington commanded a quarter of total public radio news/talk listening and tallied the highest average listening share of all the regions, 11.3%.45 Second was the Middle Atlantic region (8% share), followed by the South Atlantic (6.9% share). The South Central region, from Texas to Mississippi and up to Kentucky, had the least interest in public radio news/talk (2.1% share).
Age was the determining factor in how much news/talk radio was consumed in 2006, consistent with the previous year. Listeners aged 12 to 24 years old tuned in only 3.5 hours a week, while that number nearly doubled for those aged 25 to 54 (6.5 hours a week).46
As in years past, listeners spent less time per week with public news/talk than commercial news/talk in 2006. Commercial radio’s news/talk stations are heavy on the more popular talk format, as opposed to public radio fare that leans toward a longer and more analytical news reporting style. Also, public radio often repeats news programming – for instance, one NPR news program, “Morning Edition,” airs for two hours before repeating content, while the conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh, on the commercial dial, offers a three-hour program of original, personality-driven commentary every day.
:Public Radio vs. Commercial News/Talk/Information, 2006 |
 |
Source: Arbitron, “Public Radio Today, How America Listens to Public Radio,” July 12, 2007 and Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2007 Edition,” April 13, 2007 |
New Audience Measurement: The Portable People Meter
After years of research and field testing, the Portable People Meter — a new passive electronic device for measuring radio audiences — finally has been put in place in select markets. The new audience measure was rolled out in 2007, starting in Philadelphia in March, followed by Houston in June.
Issued by Arbitron, the radio ratings research group, the new audience measure replaces the manual method of diaries, in which panelists were asked to keep a written log of their radio use for each day. Instead of asking participants to record their listening habits, the electronic version captures them passively via a small electronic device that users carry with them throughout the day. The device detects inaudible codes that are hidden in broadcast streams and reports them to Arbitron at the end of the day. The broadcast codes identify the station and have the potential to distinguish between regular AM/FM stations, HD radio channels and even Internet streams.
Satellite radio is not yet encoded and cannot be measured by the Portable People Meter.
There are clear benefits, which is why nine out of ten top radio owner groups have opted to use it. The device can draw from a larger sample size, which leads to more stable measurements. And it measures children aged 6 to 11, while diaries measured only age 12 and older. Also, because the measurements are electronic, the data can be released much more quickly.
Arbitron expects all top-50 radio markets will turn audience measurement over to the Portable People Meter by the end of 2010.
So far, the electronic ratings measurement device is off to a rough start.
Early results from Philadelphia, Houston and New York have shown sharp rating declines for younger listening audiences and minority groups, especially African-Americans and Hispanics, compared with results from the paper diaries. Since these ratings measurements affect advertising rates, such declines could reduce revenue for radio stations that appeal to such audiences. James Winston, executive director of and general counsel of National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, said, “Defective ratings information being spread by Arbitron is more than a business crisis for African American and Hispanic station owners. It is a civil rights crisis for all of America.” 47
In mid-November, leading broadcasters such as Clear Channel, Cox Radio, Cumulus Media and Radio One sent a letter to Arbitron to assert their dissatisfaction with the people meter results, asserting that the “PPM has not provided accurate or reliable data for all demographic groups” and saying that “the number of people participating in the PPM survey must be increased.” 48 The root of the problem was that Arbitron failed to attract sufficient representation from young (18- to 34-year-olds) and ethnic demographics, which skewed audience ratings downward for stations that appeal to such groups.
In response to these complaints, Arbitron announced at the end of November 2007 that it would delay introducing the Portable People Meter in the nine markets it was expecting to launch in late 2007 and 2008: New York City, Nassau-Suffolk Counties in New York, Middlesex-Somerset-Union Counties in New Jersey, Los Angeles, Riverside, Calif., Chicago, San Francisco, San Jose, Calif., and Dallas. In announcing the decision, Arbitron's CEO, Steve Morris, said, “We remain confident in the audience estimates that the Portable People Meter service is producing. However, over the past three weeks, feedback from our customers, the Media Rating Council and other constituencies has led us to conclude that the radio industry would be better served if we were to delay further commercialization of the PPM in order to address their issues.”49
Morris also said that Arbitron would use the time granted by the delays to focus on how to improve sample sizes and meter compliance among the 18- to 34-year-old group, especially young ethnic adults.
Footnotes
1. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007.
2. Ibid.
3. Bridge Ratings, “Digital Media Growth Predictions,” April 25, 2007..
4. Bridge Ratings Group, “Bridge Ratings Industry Update – Internet Radio Perceptions,” April 18, 2007.
5. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007.
6. Arbitron, "Persons Using Radio Report," Cume Rating Monday-Sunday 6 a.m.-midnight: http://wargod.arbitron.com/scripts/ndb/ndbradio2.asp .This figure is based on what Arbitron calls “Cume,” which is the number of people who tuned into radio at least once and at least for five minutes in an average week
7. Arbitron RADAR 93, June 2007, via Radio Advertising Bureau, “Radio Marketing Guide and Fact Book 2007-2008.”
8. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007.
9. Bridge Ratings Group, “Digital Media Growth Projections – Updated 4/25/07.”
10. Ibid.
11. BIA Financial Network database, station updates through August 31, 2007.
12. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007. Only 6% of people are very interested in getting an HD radio, and 23% expressed that they were “somewhat interested.”.
13. Sirius Radio and XM Radio press releases.
14. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007.
15. Ibid.
16. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007.
17. Bridge Ratings Group, “Bridge Ratings Industry Update – Internet Radio Perceptions,” April 18, 2007.
18. Ibid.
19. Radio Business Report, “Internet Streaming Close to Becoming a Fully Mobile Media,” November 16, 2007.
20. Ibid.
21. Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2007 Edition,” April 13, 2007.
22. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007.
23. Bridge Ratings Group, “Digital Media Growth Projections – Updated 4/25/07.”
24. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007.
25. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007.
26. “U.S. Wireless Subscribership Passes 250 Million Mark,” CTIA press release, November 13, 2007, http://www.ctia.org/media/press/body.cfm/prid/1724.
27. Bridge Ratings, “The Mobile Phone Consumer: Implications for Terrestrial Radio,” May 9, 2007.
28. Arbitron, “The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms,” April 19, 2007.
29. Bridge Ratings, “The Mobile Phone Consumer: Implications for Terrestrial Radio,” May 9, 2007.
30. Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2007 Edition,” April 13, 2007.
31. Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2007 Edition,” April 13, 2007.
32. Ibid. Based on average quarterly hour share of listening.
33. BIA Financial Network database, August 31, 2007.
34. Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2007 Edition,” April 13, 2007. Because formats can be defined differently, Inside Radio found different format totals, but the same conclusion: the total number of commercial country stations was 2,019 and the total number of commercial news/talk stations was 1,324 in 2005-2006.
35. Corporation for Public Broadcasting, August 23, 2006, http://www.cpb.org/pressroom/re lease.php?prn=566.
36. Podcast Alley, podcastalley.com, January 15, 2008.
37. Arbitron, “Public Radio Today, How America Listens to Public Radio,” July 12, 2007.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2007 Edition,” April 13, 2007.
42. Adam Clayton Powell III is currently the provost for globalization at USC. Formerly, he was vice president for news at NPR, head of network radio news operations at CBS and news director of all-news WINS in New York City.
43. Arbitron, “Public Radio Today, How America Listens to Public Radio,” July 12, 2007. Based on Average Quarterly Hour Share.
44. Ibid.
45. W. Scott Bailey, “Clear Channel, Others Raise Ratings Concerns Over Arbitron System,” MSNBC, December 16, 2007.
46. Erik Sass, “Dear Arbitron: Radio Industry Letter Delivers Broadside,” Media Post, November 15, 2007.
47. Radio Business Report, “Arbitron to Delay PPM Rollout in NYC, LA, Chicago, San Francisco and Dallas,” November 27, 2007.
Economics
By the Project for Excellence in Journalism
Has new audio changed the economic picture for radio?
While traditional AM/FM advertising revenue still dominates, satellite and digital ad dollars are responsible for a growing percentage of overall radio revenue.
In 2006, total radio revenue (including broadcast, satellite and digital) increased 3.7% to $21.77 billion, up 2.8% over the previous year.1 The lion’s share (92.5%) of 2006 revenue – $20.14 billion – came from traditional AM/FM radio.
Traditional radio revenue has remained relatively flat in the past two years, but advertisers slowly are putting more faith in satellite radio, broadcast and non-broadcast Internet stations, podcasting and even cell phone radio.
The most promising players are broadcast Internet stations, which added to radio’s overall bottom line with small but sharp increases in ad revenue for 2007. And though satellite radio relies primarily on subscription fees for revenue, its relatively small slice of the advertising pie ($66 million in 2006) still makes it a competitor, with growth in triple digits (155% in 2006).2
Advertisers have made it clear they are willing to spend money to capture the new audio audiences, who tend to be more affluent. But they are still waiting for an accurate tool to measure an audience that now crisscrosses technology platforms. (See Audience section on the Portable People Meter.)
Advertising Revenue on the AM/FM Dial
Year-end figures for 2007 show that overall advertising revenue was down 2% from 2006 to $21.3 billion for traditional radio. But the economic diagnosis is much more complex.
Most stations still build the majority of their revenue on local advertising on the AM/FM dial: Local ads accounted for 77% of total advertising revenue in 2006. And this metric was down 2% in 2007 to $15.1 billion. But this is not as alarming as the revenue losses observed in other media sectors, like, for example, the ailing newspaper industry.
The good news: Revenue from what the radio industry calls “non-spot” advertising, made up primarily of Internet advertising revenue and station-sponsored events such as concerts, is way up. This figure has been growing steadily over the past four years that the Radio Advertising Bureau has released the data, but year-end numbers for 2007 show steep increases, with non-spot advertising growing 10% to $1.7 billion. That figure accounted for 8% of all advertising revenue for the year.
On the other hand, the national advertising category, which amounted to only 17.6% of total advertising in 2006, further declined. It was down 6% to $3.3 billion for the year. National revenue generally goes through one of the two giant national advertising reps – Katz Media Group or Interep. Though big-name national brands like McDonalds, Coca-Cola and automotive manufacturers do purchase corporate advertising campaigns through Katz or Interep, most of the advertising actually gets carried at the local level, so it is difficult to say whether these national companies are advertising less on radio.
 |
Source: Radio Advertising Bureau |
New Audio Revenue
Radio’s economic picture is far from neat and tidy.
So far, media research companies have not found an efficient way to separate revenue or audience figures for new audio choices, making it impossible to gauge what is working in these new and competing industries, much less offer a definitive side-by-side comparison.
What we do know is that the economic impact of the new audio platforms – satellite radio, HD Radio, Internet radio, cell phone radio and podcasting – is still a small slice of the total revenue pie. To put it in perspective:
2001 - 2006 |
 |
Source: Veronis Suhler Stevenson, “Communications Industry Forecast 2007-2011” |
Further complicating the picture is the fact that several radio platforms are interdependent.
For instance, Internet radio consists of both traditional AM/FM broadcast content streamed online as well as on online-only audio channels like Pandora. Some Internet listening can only be streamed and some downloaded as podcasts, while others can be downloaded and then burned onto CDs. Podcasts can then be heard not only on any MP3 player and computer, but also on a number of enabled cell phones.
And certain radio content can be shared across all of these platforms.
Take National Public Radio, whose content is aired on local affiliate stations as well as HD stations and satellite radio. An NPR listener can also access news stories online, either at npr.org or through a local station’s Web site. From there, a user can stream live radio content, read a story, listen to a program or download it as a podcast for later listening on an MP3 player. NPR listeners also can access news and features from their cell phones.
With all of this innovation, the audience gets a wide range of listening options, but there is no accurate method to measure who is listening to what. And it is very difficult to parse out how much ad revenue each platform is bringing in.
Internet Radio, Small but Significant
Internet radio has been the humble success story of new audio.
Though its other new audio competitors have attracted more attention, Internet radio is in some ways better equipped to sustain high levels of revenue growth. Its compound growth rate of advertising from 2001 to 2006 was 50%, and, according to the media research group Veronis Suhler Stevenson, is predicted to continue at a respectable 40% over the following five years.4
Total advertising revenue for online radio was $106 million in 2006, up 77% from $60 million in 2005. But another component – paid content in the form of subscriptions and podcasts – accounted for an additional $45 million in 2006. That growth, up 66% from the previous year, is expected to slow down in the coming years – compound growth for 2006 to 2011 is predicted to be 25% over that period. Earnings from content amounted to slightly less than 30% of total revenue in 2006.
It is unclear how much the news sector has contributed to that growth. But there is a chance that news, talk and information content may gain more traction, thanks to a major cost factor that online music stations faced starting in 2007.
In June 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board approved a new structure that imposed stricter copyright fees on Internet radio stations. The royalty fee structure would charge online music stations (including both AM/FM Webcasters and online-only stations) on a per-song, per-listener basis, instead of as a percentage of revenue.
For all but the largest online radio groups, this could prove devastating. Many small and medium-sized Internet-based radio stations have already shut down because the fees exceeded their total revenue. Bill Goldsmith, owner of Radio Paradise, an eclectic online rock radio station, said, “This royalty structure would wipe out an entire class of business, small independent Webcasters such as myself and my wife, who operate Radio Paradise. Our obligation under this rate structure would be equal to over 125% of our total income. There is no practical way for us to increase our income so dramatically as to render that affordable.” 5
Congress could override the decision by passing a bipartisan measure, the Internet Radio Equality Act, which would instead charge a flat fee equal to 7.5% of an online radio station’s total revenue.
Satellite Radio’s Unprofitable Success
Satellite radio has generated the most revenue among the new audio devices, despite its troubled growth and the continuing quest by its two players – XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio – to reduce costs by merging into a single satellite provider.
Total revenue for XM in the first half of 2007 was up 24%, to $541.4 million over the first half of 2006. Sirius, which spearheaded the merger, performed even better. Its revenue for the first half of 2007 was $430.5 million, up 55% from the same time in 2006.6
The better financial indicator for the satellite radio companies, however, might be their net losses. Both companies pay such a high cost for recruiting on-air talent – Howard Stern’s five-year contract cost Sirius $500 million and XM paid Oprah Winfrey $55 million over three years – that the companies operate with a hefty debt. In other words, new subscribers are not making up for all that high-profile talent.
Both companies did reduce their net losses for the second quarter of 2007, XM by 23% over the second quarter of 2006 and Sirius by 44% over the same quarter.7
The revenue model for satellite radio, however, is different than that of broadcast radio. According to Veronis Suhler Stevenson, subscriptions accounted for 95.5% of satellite radio’s revenue in 2006.
2001 - 2006 |
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Source: Veronis Suhler Stevenson, “Communications Industry Forecast 2007-2011” |
The Predicament of HD Radio
Despite all the HD radio hype, the economic returns have not yet materialized. But that has not stopped stations from investing in the new technology.
Over all, HD Radio’s ambitions are based largely on unmet expectations. In July 2007, the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) interviewed station managers or executives at 14 HD radio news stations across the country. Among those, all of which were public radio stations, none had seen revenue gains from the crystal-clear broadcasts, even though most had been operating on the digital platform for more than two years.8 As noted above ( see HD section of Audience), news/talk programming dominates the HD radio dial largely because of an influx of grant money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which enabled many public radio news stations to go digital.
Tim Eby, station manager at WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and the central part of the state, said he expects “it will be several years before our HD channels begin producing significant amounts of revenue.” John Hingsbergen of WMUB in Oxford, Ohio, told the PEJ that “we don’t expect direct funding support for these channels until HD radios are more commonly available.” In the meantime, he said that he could only hope that “the addition of HD multicasting channels [can] help assure loyalty of station listeners and members.”
But Rich Dean of KUT at the University of Texas seems less optimistic about the financial future of digital radio. Dean said his station is “not even close to bringing in a profit.” Furthermore, he said the technology has performed poorly. “We are reluctant to push listeners to buy these expensive radios,” he said. “Already we bear the brunt of complaints about coverage and reception, as well as the poor build quality of the radios themselves.”
Have these pioneering news/talk/information stations borne a hefty financial burden in making the switch?
The cost of making the conversion to the HD radio signal varies with the size of the terrestrial analog signal. Of the stations interviewed, the bill ranged from $100,000 to $290,000. On average, the CPB grants cover about half of the conversion costs, although some covered more. Some stations received more financial assistance from other state and local grants. For example, the three stations operated by the University of Kansas did not pay any money for the conversion, but their general manager, Janet Campbell, said it did cost a lot of staff time.
For public radio stations providing news, talk and information, the digital broadcasting platform appears to be a win-win. It comes at a reasonable price and has strong potential to bring diversity to the airwaves and new avenues of revenue. Until that revenue comes in, HD radio stations will have to operate like any other local radio station that has few listeners – by broadcasting network programs and other syndicated shows.
The Potential of Cell Phone Radio
Cell phone forecasts, as was the case last year, are much healthier than actual performance.
Mobile phone radio is making a lot of noise among gadget-savvy consumers who are eager to consume a variety of radio-equipped phones from Nokia, Samsung and Motorola. But, so far, the financial splash is quieter. By year-end 2006, mobile phone radio revenue amounted to a meager $3 million, of which $2 million came from subscriptions to cell-phone-specific radio content and $1 million from advertising.9
As with satellite radio, cell phone radio is making more from subscription-based earnings than advertising. At the end of 2006, subscriptions were taking in double that of advertising dollars, although advertising’s share of the growth is rising much faster. Still, many analysts see a strong economic future for the platform. Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a highly regarded industry forecaster, predicts that both advertising and content-based revenue will increase at triple digits through 2008. By 2010, total advertising dollars are expected to surpass revenue earned from subscription-based content.
Looking forward, the media research group predicts a total compound growth rate of 104.5% for mobile phone radio revenue through 2011.10 Of that, advertising is expected to grow 126.7% over the five-year forecast and subscription-based revenue at a rate of 88.4%.
These, of course, are just predictions, subject to an array of other emerging trends and economic conditions over the next several years.
2007 - 2011 |
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Source: Veronis Suhler Stevenson, “Communications Industry Forecast 2007-2011” |
News and Talk Revenue
How does news and information fit into the overall picture of radio’s economic health?
Radio newsrooms have an up-and-down profit history, but 2006 was the most profitable in a decade, according to an annual survey of news directors conducted for the Radio and Television News Directors Association and Ball State University by Robert Papper, formerly with Ball State. Nearly twice as many news directors (29.1%) in 2006 reported profitable newsrooms, compared with the previous year (18.1%).11 In turn, fewer reported losses or breaking even. And consistent with years past, most news directors (49.1%) did not know how their newsrooms were performing financially.
Survey of News Directors, 1996-2005 |
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Source: RTNDA/Ball State University Newsroom Surveys Note: Based on survey responses of news directors |
When broken down by ownership groups, some significant differences emerge. CBS has the most profitable news operation in terms of average revenue per news station ($26.6 million), followed by Citadel/ABC ($24.5 million).12 Clear Channel, which leads in news outlets, lags in profit, earning $4.1 million per station. One explanation for the revenue differences probably has to do with the markets where each group has news stations. CBS Radio operates stations in the top markets in the country. Seven of its 17 stations broadcast from the top five markets – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia. By contrast, Clear Channel operates many news stations in midsize markets, particularly in the Southeast, where all-news stations fare the worst.
Is news or talk more profitable? Despite the proliferation of talk radio, mixed news/talk/information stations generally are more lucrative than straight talk stations.
CBS Radio’s news operation, for example, pulls in almost two and a half times the revenue of its talk programming. The gap for Citadel/ABC is a bit smaller, but still notable: News stations generate one and a half times the revenue of the talk stations. Exceptions to this rule, however, are Cumulus Media Pa