2012 TV and Radio News Staffing and Profitability Survey

Transcription

1 2012 TV and Radio News Staffing and Profitability Survey Part I: TV News Staffing Soars to 2 nd Highest Level Ever with More Hiring Projected; Profitability Rises Again By Bob Papper - TV news employment up to second highest level ever; profitability up, too - More TV news hiring projected this year - Radio news little changed, as usual The latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey found that TV news staffing soared in adding 1,131 jobs - to reach full time employment of 27,653. That's a gain of 4.3% over last year and the highest average full time TV news staff ever. However, overall, it puts 2011 in second place for TV news employment. First place is still held by year The average station newsroom employment then was lower than today, but more stations originated local news. Overall, there are now 725 TV stations originating local news - running that news on those stations and another 242 stations for a of 967 stations airing local news. The average TV station hired 5.4 replacements during 2011 and 1.5 new, additional positions. Top replacement hires: 1) reporters 2) producers 3) photographers 4) anchors

2 5) multimedia journalists 6) weather 7) associate producers/news assistants 8) web, and 9) tape editor and sports. Top new hires: 1)producers 2)reporters 3)web 4)anchors 5)photographers 6)multimedia journalists 7)tape editor 8)weather, associate producers/news assistants and executive producer In contrast, the latest numbers for the newspaper industry found that newspaper newsroom staff fell 2.4% from a year ago. The American Society of News Editors reported that the newspaper news staff of 40,600 is at the lowest level in the 35 years that ASNE has been conducting the survey. Overall, newsroom staff has fallen 28.6% from its high in TV Staff Size 2012 fulltime Median fulltime Maximum full-time Median part-time Maximum part-time staff Median Maximum staff parttime All TV Big four affiliates Non Market size:

3 The median number of full time staffers rose by two from a year ago, and the average number soared by 2.6. That's a huge one-year increase. Not everyone shared in the growth. Markets actually dropped, but markets 51+ all went up noticeably, and the biggest markets, 1-25, skyrocketed. Staff Size Changes - The Past Year Increase Decrease Same Don t know All TV news 42.9% 10.1% 46.2% 0.9% Big four affiliates In the last year, the percentage of stations saying they increased staff rose by more than 11%, and the percentage saying they decreased staff fell by 10%. Generally, the larger the market, the more likely that the station increased staff. Fox affiliates were more likely than any other group to increase staff size. Stations in the South were more likely to have added staff than stations elsewhere. Planned Staff Changes - The Next Year Increase Decrease Same Not sure All TV news 36.7% 2.4% 54.6% 6.3% Big four affiliates As with last year, a majority of news directors expect no staff size changes in 2012, but almost 15 times as many news directors expect to add staff as cut. Last year, the ratio was 10:1. Most of the market and staff sizes are similar in number, although the biggest market and staff groups are more likely than others to expect to add staff, and the smallest market and staff sizes are the least likely to expect growth. Affiliation makes little difference, although fewer NBC affiliate news directors expect to add staff than others, and fewer stations in the Midwest expect to add staff. News directors can be a surprisingly optimistic lot, but last year's survey projections on hiring turned out to be dead on what took place in the following year.

4 TV News Budget - The Past Year Increase Decrease Same Don t know All TV news 38.0% 16.7% 38.7% 6.7% Big four affiliates Market size: A plurality of TV news budgets stayed the same last year as the year before -- but just barely. A plurality of network affiliate news budgets went up. Eleven percent more TV news budgets increased than the year before, and the percentage that decreased fell by 7%. Most groupings shared in the budget increases, but the smallest stations and stations in the smallest markets rose the least. TV News Profitability Showing profit 59.3% 57.4% 47.8% 44.5% 58% Breaking even Showing loss Don t know TV news profitability rose again, and this year's 59.6% is the highest level it's been since TV News Profitability by Size and Affiliation 2012 Showing profit Breaking even Showing loss Don t know Market size: % 17.0% 3.8% 24.5% Staff size:

5 Affiliation: ABC CBS Fox NBC Big four affiliates Stations in the smallest markets, with the smallest staffs and outside the big four networks all brought the profitability numbers down. Percentage of TV Station Revenue Produced by News 2012 Average Median Minimum Maximum Not sure All TV news 48.2% 45.0% 25 75% 77.3% Market size: Staff size: Affiliation: ABC CBS Fox NBC Big four affiliates As with last year, there are no meaningful changes in the percentage of station revenue produced by news compared to the year before. Although the average is up slightly, the median stayed the same. Radio Staffing

6 The typical (median) radio news operation had a full time news staff of one -- the same as it's been since I started doing these surveys 18 years ago. Radio news remains highly centralized, with the typical news director overseeing the news on two stations and more than three-quarters (77.6%) of all multi-station operations have a centralized newsroom. Radio Staff Size fulltime Median full-time Max fulltime parttime Med parttime Max parttime staff Med staff All radio news Market size: Major Large Medium Small Max staff This year's survey included some very large major market all news stations, and those stations raised the average staff size. That's why it's frequently better to focus on the median, which gives a better sense of what's happening at the typical station. With those larger, all news stations, the major market median rose, but all other medians -- including overall -- remained exactly the same as it was last year. Non- stations tended to have more part timers, but otherwise, there was little difference between and non-. Group owned stations tended to be larger -- as did stations in the Northeast. Changes in Radio Staff and Budget in the Last 12 Months and Planned for the Future 2012 Increase Decrease Same Not sure Total news staff the past year 16.0% 8.8% 74.0% 1.1% Plan to change amount of staff next year Change in news budget from the year before Most of these numbers look a lot like last year. Five percent more stations reported an increase in staff than a year ago, but the percentage reporting a decrease in staff fell by less than a percentage point. Planned staff and budget changes are almost identical.

7 Non- stations fared much better than ones. More than twice as many non- stations reported increasing staff compared to stations. The bigger the staff, the more likely for the station to have increased, and most of that increase came in the biggest markets (1 million and more). Groups fared better than independents, but geography made little difference. Planned increases follow a similar pattern, except that a lot fewer non- stations plan increases. There were few meaningful differences in budget, although the rich (bigger stations in the biggest markets) were far more likely to get richer (more budget) than any other group. Radio News Profitability Showing 14.6% 23.0% 13.9% 19.6% 25% profit Breaking even Showing loss Don't know The percentage of news directors not knowing the answer to news profitability grew by 10% over last year, and most of that appears to have come from the profit group. The biggest stations tended to do better than others; stations in the West didn't do as well as all the other areas. Although I report an estimate of station revenue that comes from news in TV, I don't report the number in radio because the overwhelming number of radio news directors (81.1%) say they don't know, and the survey sample size in radio is smaller than in television.. Radio News Profitability by Market Size 2012 Showing profit Breaking even Showing loss Don t know Major market 18.2% 13.6% 18.2% 50.0% Large market Medium market Small market Major markets are those with 1 million or more potential listeners. Large markets are from 250,000 to 1 million. Medium markets are 50,000 to 250,000. Small markets are fewer than 50,000.

8 It's also hard to project radio hiring based on the survey responses. Only half the news directors answered the question, and there's no way to know whether a non-answer means there was no hiring or whether it's just a non-answer. The median number of hires -- both replacements and new positions -- was zero. That doesn't mean there was no hiring, but half the stations reported they hired no one in news. Of those that did hire, they hired an average of 0.4 people as replacements and 0.5 people in new positions. Bottom line: another weak year for radio employment. Bob Papper is the Lawrence Stessin Distinguished Professor of Journalism and chair of the Department of Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations at Hofstra University and has worked extensively in radio and TV news. This research was supported by the School of Communication at Hofstra University and the Radio Television Digital News Association. About the Survey The RTDNA/Hofstra University Survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2011 among all 1,735 operating, non-satellite television stations and a random sample of 3,000 radio stations. Valid responses came from 1,238 television stations (71.4%) and 260 radio news directors and general managers representing 743 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.