Local TV and Radio News Survey 2022
/Takeaways from The Radio Television Digital News Association’s annual survey of local TV and radio:
Programming
A new record of 1,116 TV stations aired local news—up 18 from last year’s all-time high.
Budgets
Just 16.3% of TV stations report budget increases while 29.3% report experiencing budget cuts.
Among TV news directors who do know their department’s profitability, 75.9% report a profit.
The percentage of radio news managers reporting their budgets decreased doubled to 18.2% over the previous year.
Salaries
Despite pandemic-related pay cuts, local television news salaries, on average, increased by 3.5%, or 2.1% after accounting for inflation.
TV salaries in markets 101-150 faired the best, with salaries for most positions increasing while in the top 25 markets, salaries for most positions fell.
Average and median starting TV news salaries both rose during 2021 to the highest staring salaries in the survey’s history.
Staffing
Full-time newsroom staffing fell 6.3% in 2021.
Digital staffing, on average, was up slightly, along with the roles of photographer, producer, editor and social media producer/editor.
Three times as many commercial radio news departments cut staff as added. Public radio stations, on the other hand, were four times more likely than commercial stations to grow.
Solo Journalists
The average newsroom has fewer solo journalists than last year while smaller markets overwhelmingly rely on MMJs, and mid-markets increasingly do, but few stations large market stations send reporters out alone.
MMJs and producers remain most in demand, representing about three-quarters of new TV news hires.
Innovations
More local TV newsrooms report producing virtual town halls, specials and longer-form or digital-exclusive content.
Social Media
Facebook is the most popular social media platform for local TV and radio news, with 94% of radio newsrooms and 100% of TV newsrooms reporting they used it.
Instagram is used by nearly every TV station and a third of radio newsrooms.
Twitter use among local news has been declining for several years, with most TV newsrooms using the platform, but less frequently.
Podcasts
The typical station, measured by median, has no podcasts and the average per station is less than one half.
The typical radio news department reporting zero podcasts.
Danger
1 in 5 television news directors reported attacks on employees.
More than half of attacks occurred during coverage of civil unrest, protests, marches/rallies or riots