Minority representation soars to record high in radio news
By Bob Papper and Keren Henderson
Aug. 1, 2024 — The latest RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey found that the minority workforce in radio rose nearly 5 points to 21.5% — the highest level ever — eclipsing the old record of 17.8% set in 2022. All minority groups set record highs except Native Americans, which edged down by 0.1.
The big change this year came in commercial radio — which soared from last year’s 9.8% minority to this year’s 19.4%. Non-commercial radio held fairly steady at 23.5% minority — compared to 23.2% last year. We cannot account for the big jump at commercial stations. We’ll wait until next year’s numbers to see if this is real or a one-year anomaly.
In radio news, historically, men have outnumbered women by about 50%. Men still outnumber women, but the margin got noticeably tighter this year, with 57.4% men compared to 42.6% women. That’s 4 points down for men, and 4 points up for women. This year, only white men outnumber women. Among Caucasians, the percentage is 61.6% men versus 38.4% women. That’s 3 points down for men, 3 points up for women. In all other groups, women now outnumber men. With Hispanics, it’s 54.7% women and 45.3% men; African American women outnumber men, 57.5% to 42.5%; Asian American women way outnumber the men, 64.2% to 35.8%, and Native American women are 55.6% to 44.4% men.
Historically, women news directors have been much more common at non-commercial stations than commercial ones, and that’s certainly true again this year. There were gains for women news directors in major markets but losses in medium and small markets. In the end, the percentage overall is virtually identical to a year ago. Women news directors are most common in the West. This year we also have the first reports of non-binary news directors — at 0.7% overall.
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.
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 2023 among all 1,876 operating, non-satellite television stations and a random sample of 4,764 radio stations. The television response rate is different for every question, but Valid responses came from as many as 1,387 television stations (73.9%) and 631 radio news directors and general managers representing 1,902 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.