Radio news content remains fairly steady
By Tim Mirabito, Keren Henderson and Akshaya Chandrasekaran
Radio news content held broadly steady in 2025, with 76.7% of surveyed stations reporting they run local news — up 6.2 points and marking a third consecutive year of growth, according to the latest RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey.
Both AM and FM stations posted modest gains, though smaller than the year before. Commercial stations produce news at a notably higher rate than non-commercial stations (65.7% versus 62.6%), though the commercial figure fell nearly 10 points from last year while non-commercial stations edged up slightly.
A clearer pattern has emerged around ownership: locally owned stations are now nearly 40% more likely to air news than non-local stations, a trend that has held for three consecutive years. The typical (median) amount of weekday local news rose to 50 minutes, up 10 minutes from last year, though average minutes swung sharply depending on market size — major markets saw an enormous drop in average weekday minutes, which researchers attribute to unusual data the prior year rather than a real decline, while large and medium markets saw increases.
Small markets and commercial stations were the only groups with a consistent decrease in news minutes. Looking ahead, more radio news managers plan to increase local news production in 2026 than actually increased it in 2025, a pattern consistent with prior years in which projected changes tend to outpace realized ones. Major-market stations anticipate the largest gains (31.6%), followed by medium, large and small markets.
The percentage of managers planning to decrease news content remains very low (0.8%), continuing a long-running trend in which decreases are rare and modest compared to increases.
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.