News Releases

RTDNA/Hofstra Survey Finds TV Doing More With Less, Optimism On Staffing

For Immediate Release: April 14, 2010
Contact: Ryan Murphy, 202.495.8730, ryanm@rtdna.org

WASHINGTON - The RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey found that 2009 meant another year of TV news doing more with less and news leaders typically feeling optimistic about staffing levels staying the same or growing in 2010. 

All told, 400 people in local TV news lost their jobs in 2009, according to the survey – accounting for 1.5 percent of the local TV workforce.  That may be considered a bad year, but not nearly as bad as 2008, when 1,200 people lost jobs in TV news (4.3 percent of the workforce). 

Even as staffing fell, the amount of news on the average station rose to another record high of five hours per weekday. That’s up from last year’s record 4.7 hours.

The best news in this year's survey regards planned staff changes in 2010.  In a dramatic turnaround from a year ago, over 60 percent of TV news directors say they expect staffing levels to stay the same.  That's up nearly 20 points from a year ago.  The number expecting a decrease in staffing dropped 77 percent from a year ago, and the percentage expecting an increase in staff went up by 145 percent.

Station profitability on news dropped slightly, but the percentage of station revenue produced by news remained the same.

2009 started with 770 TV stations producing original local news, shared with another 205 stations for a total of 975 using the content. Going into 2010, a net loss of eight stations left 762 stations producing original local news, and sharing it with another 224, for a total of 986 stations. 

Only one network affiliate simply dropped local news completely in 2009.  Most of the cuts involved independent stations, and most wound up continuing to run local news but getting it from another station.

Radio news changed little in 2009.  The amount of news on the air is just about the same as a year ago, and the typical radio news staff remained at one person.  If anything, radio news is even more centralized now than it has been, with the typical news director overseeing the news on three stations, and more than 80 percent of radio news directors saying they have additional station responsibilities beyond news.

Over the next few weeks, RTDNA will incrementally release a series of results from the full survey to RTDNA members including information on: how TV news is changing, social media usage, technology development, web trends and one-man bands.

RTDNA Members can access the full data from the survey by clicking here.

About the Survey

The RTDNA/Hofstra University Survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2009 among all 1,770 operating, non-satellite television stations and a random sample of 4,000 radio stations.  Valid responses came from 1,355 television stations (76.6 percent) and 203 radio news directors and general managers representing 301 radio stations.

Some data sets (e.g. the number of TV stations originating local news, getting it from others and women TV news directors) are based on a complete census and are not projected from a smaller sample.

The annual survey is conducted for RTDNA by Bob Papper, the Lawrence Stessin Distinguished Professor of Journalism and chair of the Department of Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations at Hofstra University.  This research was supported by the School of Communication at Hofstra University and the Radio Television Digital News Association.

About RTDNA

RTDNA is the world's largest professional organization devoted exclusively to electronic journalism. RTDNA represents local and network news executives in broadcasting, cable and digital media in more than 20 countries.