Report: Women & Minorities Make Newsroom Gains

RADIO ONLINE | Wednesday, July 30, 2014

The latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey of U.S. broadcast newsrooms by Professor Emeritus Bob Papper shows that the minority workforce in radio rose to the highest level since in the mid-1990s. The picture for women in radio news was more mixed, but as far as minorities are concerned, the bigger picture remains unchanged. In the last 24 years, the minority population in the U.S. has risen 11 points, but the minority workforce in radio is up 2.2%.

The minority workforce in radio rose to the highest level since in the mid-1990s. African American, Hispanic American and Native American all went up, while Asian Americans fell. Minority numbers in radio are up pretty much all across the board with two to three times as high for non-commercial stations as for commercial ones.

All the diversity trend lines in radio were better this year. The percentage of news staffs with minorities went up 5 points over a year ago. Minority news directors rose by 2, while the minority workforce went up by just over 2.

The percentage of women news directors in radio went up by 2.5 in the last year. A year ago, women were pretty close as news directors in commercial and non-commercial stations. Not in 2014, as women were almost twice as likely to be news directors at public stations. Women were much less likely to be news directors in the smallest markets and in the South. News staffs with women stayed largely the same. Women as a percentage of the workforce fell from last year's 34.2% to this year's 31.1%. Again, non-commercial stations employed a higher percentage of women than commercial stations.

This is the second year in a row for an increase in the percentage of minority radio General Managers. They're up from last year's 8.2% to this year's 9.9%. All of the gains came from non-commercial stations. After dropping about 5 points last year, women radio General Managers are back up 4 points. Again, the increase all came among non-commercial radio stations.

Read Professor Emeritus Bob Papper's summary of his findings by clicking here.