2025 Radio News Report: Local news surges in most metrics
By Bob Papper, Keren Henderson and Tim Mirabito
July 25, 2025 — The latest RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey found that, overall, 70.5% of all radio stations in the Survey report running local news, an increase of 6.3% compared to last year. That marks an increase in two consecutive years. More AM stations run local news than FM stations — barely — but the percentage of FM stations that run local news is increasing at a faster rate — nearly 3 percentage points higher.
There has been a swing in the percentages of commercial versus non-commercial stations that run local news. This year, there’s a slight decline in the rate of non-commercial stations airing local news, dropping from 60.7% last year to 60% now. Commercial stations, by contrast, increased noticeably to 75.3%, an increase of 10.3%. The decline in non-commercial stations, while only 0.7%, is still notable after last year’s 10% decrease. We theorized previously that digital sub-channels may impact these percentages. That still may be the case, but the percentages did level out more this year.
Last year was the first time since we began tracking these numbers that locally owned radio stations took the lead in news production. They were more likely to produce news than non-locally owned stations. That trend continued this year, which may indicate a shift. The percentages are relatively close, with 71.4% of locally owned stations running news. Conversely, 66.7% of non-locally owned stations ran news.
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About the Authors
Bob Papper is Research Professor of Broadcast and Digital Journalism at Syracuse University and has worked extensively in radio and TV news.
Keren Henderson is Associate Professor of Broadcast and Digital Journalism at Syracuse University and has worked as a news producer and video editor.
Tim Mirabito is Assistant Professor of Broadcast and Digital Journalism at Syracuse University and worked in television, radio, print and online media.
This research was supported by the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and the Radio Television Digital News Association.
About the Survey
The RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2024 among 1,918 operating, non-satellite television stations and a random sample of 4,763 radio stations. The television response rate is different for every question, but valid responses came from as many as 1,406 television stations (73.3%) and 599 radio news directors and general managers representing 1,632 radio stations. Some data sets (e.g. the number of TV stations originating local news, getting news from others and women TV news directors) are based on a complete census and are not projected from a smaller sample.