3-19-13
The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its very extensive State of the News Media annual report. The detailed study includes research and analysis on all forms of media, including newspapers, TV, magazines, digital and radio. While the report focuses on how the media delivers news to consumers, the report on audio is good news for radio, stating "listening to content seems to be as popular as ever and accessible in more formats than ever."
The repeated mantra from radio executives of "we need to be everywhere" seems to be the correct path if you dig down into the Pew findings. "Overall, audio has gained traction in the U.S. as more and more ways of listening emerge and as listening is perhaps the platform most conducive to today?s propensity towards multi-tasking. Among the choices, digital streaming seems to carry the most momentum, though traditional AM/FM still reaches far more Americans."
The Pew report also says listening to content is as popular as ever with more formats than ever. The report was somewhat critical of the amount of news delivered from commercial radio stations. "Aside from a scattering of stations around the country devoted to all-news programming, commercial radio news is mostly relegated to top-of-the-hour news headlines produced by an outside network. News/talk/information (and the recent addition of talk personality) is still a popular category for radio, behind only country music, but our research has found that this genre is filled with more talk than news, much of it nationally syndicated. In the newer forms of listening?satellite and online-only?news is a rare component. Only 26 of the more than 1,000 satellite radio channels are categorized as news."
It's no surprise to anyone that has followed the industry that revenue growth in radio has almost been a flat line for years. The folks at Pew came to the same conclusion. "Financially, the picture does not bode well for traditional radio. AM/FM on-air election advertising brought in $124 million in 2012, but most other areas saw steep declines, resulting in a flat year over all. Online-only and satellite radio, on the other hand, had better years than in the past, with more positive long-term forecasts."
And finally, Pew says NPR has made the most progress transforming into a digital company. "National Public Radio may have positioned itself for the digital age better than other news radio, at least in terms of finding its audience. While its radio listenership declined somewhat in 2012, new audience to the network?s mobile apps seems to be more than making up for that loss."
To read the entire "audio" segment of the Pew study go HERE
(3/19/2013 12:17:45 PM)
Eric, why didn't you mention the part about HD Radio? PEW slams HD!
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