On The Kowch for week of September 27th

Study bangs another nail in coffin of radio newsrooms

From where I sit On The Kowch, I have always wondered where people go for their news. There are so many choices today with TV, cable news channels, the internet,  radio stations, newspapers etc.

Now we have some answers thanks to a new US study by The Pew Internet Project, Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence and the Knight Foundation on how people learn about what is going on in their community. The phone survey of 2,251 adults 18+ was conducted in January.

This study deals with local news consumption. Not network news coverage or non news TV viewer habits or radio listening habits (music stations, talk stations).

By the numbers:

• 74% Local TV News (includes broadcast and/or TV station website):  74% of American adults say they get local information at least weekly from a local TV news broadcast and/or the website of their local TV news station.

• 55% Word of Mouth: 55% of adults say they get local information weekly or more often via word of mouth from family, friends, co-workers and neighbours. Adults 18-29 are the most likely to report this. For at least some, this reliance on word of mouth is likely tied to the use of online social networking sites.

• 51% Radio (includes broadcast and/or radio station website): 51% of US adults say they get local information weekly or more often from radio broadcasts (50%) and/or from the website of their local radio station.

• 50% Local Newspapers (includes print and/or newspaper website): 50% say they get local information weekly or more often from the print version of a local newspaper or its website. Those who get local information from newspapers tend to be under age 40, have college degrees and live in households earning at least $75,000.

• 47% Internet (includes search, social networks, local blogs and/or sites): 47% of adults report getting local news weekly from the internet. 41% use search engines; 11% use Facebook; 3% use Twitter; 10% use websites; 4% use blogs. Most who get their news from the internet are younger than 30 years of age.

Type of news defines where people go to get it

Breaking News

Younger demos go to the internet more than radio

Weather

Younger demos use mobile phones and internet more than radio for weather updates

When looking at the charts, if you get the feeling that radio doesn't really count anymore as a primary source of local news, you're not alone.

"The survey finds that radio emerges as a local news and information source of fairly limited recognition," say the authors of the study.

Ouch!

"Roughly one in ten adults cite the radio as a key source for breaking news and weather. This makes radio the fourth most popular source for breaking news (behind, in order, television, newspaper and the internet) and it follows only television and the internet as a primary source for weather information. In addition," the authors of the Pew study write, "only 5% of adults cite radio as a main source for local political information and only 4% rely on radio for crime updates."

From where I sit On The Kowch,  the Pew Survey just banged another nail in the coffin of radio newsrooms. My fear is that bean counters will use this study to justify slashing newsroom budgets.

If you don't think so, look at radio's reduced coverage of Ontario's election campaign. I predicted right here in this blog that Ontario radio stations would not spend a lot of money covering the fall election because of an Astral Radio PPM analysis of ratings during the last federal election

So it was no surprise that few if any Toronto radio stations are on the campaign buses this Fall spending thousands of dollars a week to cover the party leaders. The bean counters pounced on those ratings to justify not letting newsrooms spend money to be on the campaign trail.

Steve was in charge of programming Canada's two largest newstalk radio stations for 14 years

You can email Steve at steve@kowchmedia.com

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Comments

 

0 #1 Kelly F 2011-09-28 22:05

I have to admit, I rarely listen to talk radio, except for pod-casts.

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