Local radio staffing sees small, noteworthy increase
By Tim Mirabito, Keren Henderson and Akshaya Chandrasekaran
Radio newsroom staffing showed small but notable gains in 2025, with the typical full-time news staff climbing back to two employees after last year's dip, according to the latest RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey.
As usual, non-commercial stations pushed the median higher, reporting three full-time employees compared to one at commercial stations. The average radio newsroom grew to 3.8 full-time employees, while part-time staffing held steady at 1.7. Staffing gains were broad-based across most market sizes, with large markets seeing the biggest jump (+2.7 employees) and no market segment reporting a decline.
The share of stations relying on centralized, multi-station newsrooms slipped slightly to 71.6%, continuing a post-pandemic pattern of numbers settling in the low-to-mid 70s after routinely exceeding 80% before COVID. Looking at year-over-year staffing changes, the percentage of stations that increased staff fell by more than half to 8.6%, while the share reporting no change jumped nearly 8 points to 77.6%.
Non-commercial stations remained more likely than commercial stations both to add and to cut staff, reflecting their generally larger newsroom sizes. Ongoing cuts at iHeartRadio, PBS and NPR stations may create downstream staffing effects in the next several survey cycles, though the full impact isn't yet clear. Digital-side staffing dipped slightly for a second straight year, driven mainly by a pullback in major markets, though part-time digital staffing edged up modestly overall.
Hiring showed a genuine rebound: both replacement and new hires rose to an average of 0.9 positions each, and the median hire count reached one for the first time in nine years. Reporters remained the most commonly replaced and newly hired role by a wide margin, followed by sales and promotional positions.
This annual survey, conducted in the fourth quarter of 2025, drew responses from more than 1,100 television stations and nearly 600 radio stations, and is supported by the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and the Radio Television Digital News Association.