THE LOCAL NEWS PROJECT INATIONAL RESEARCH REPORT
Presented by
Peter Dominowski
Market Trends Research Inc.
"If they could do the kind of in-depth reporting locally that they do nationally it would appeal to me."
The major news programs on public radio are presented with a primary focus on national and international reporting, with some additional local content.
But just because national and international information is the primary reason for listening does not mean that it the only reason for listening. State and local news are also valued.
There are many similar examples within radio and in other businesses. For instance, there are some listeners who may tune into A Prairie Home Companion primarily for Garrison Keillor's News From Lake Wobegone monologue. But most also listen to and enjoy other parts of the program. Listeners may tune in to a classical program primarily to hear the music, but many enjoy the announcer as well.
In a parallel to consumer behavior, most people go to one of the large bookstores to browse or shop for books. They probably do not go primarily for the gourmet coffee bars, but many nevertheless use this service and are glad it is available. The same can be said of many sporting events. Most people do not attend a football or baseball game primarily to eat the hot dogs or drink the beer, but they are glad these refreshments are available. They add to the atmosphere and overall quality of the experience.
The situation with national programming is comparable. The primary reason for listening to network news programs is undoubtedly national and international news, but most people appreciate the local content, and have come to expect it and depend upon it. Few would dramatically reduce or rid them entirely of their local information content.
How Listeners Perceive Network News Programs
When a listener says that they "love Marketplace" or "really like All Things Considered," what exactly do they mean? Listeners judge a program as a single package, based on what they hear on their public radio station, and do not compare news stories based on their point of origination.
For a listener, Marketplace or All Things Considered is Marketplace or All Things Considered as they hear it on their station, not as it is transmitted in its pure form from NPR or PRI.
On some stations, network programs are heard with considerable local input, on other stations, local content is limited. Regardless, the way that a program is heard on their local station is the way they evaluate it. Listeners rarely separate the different kinds of news they hear, nor judge the quality and interest of a report based on the source. Listeners value quality and interest over source.
High praise that listeners often pay to the best local reporting is that it's indistinguishable from network news. This may seem like a backhanded compliment, but most people would not be upset if someone told them that their golf swing was indistinguishable from Tiger Woods'. Or that their jump shot was indistinguishable from Michael Jordan's. Or that they threw the football just as well as Joe Montana. When listeners say the best local reporting cannot be distinguished from the network, they are comparing station efforts to the news they rate the highest among all their media choices. A more hearty endorsement cannot be expected!
The Mix of Nationally and Locally Produced News
This research does not suggest that most stations should dramatically increase their local news presence. But it does not suggest a decrease, and shows that most listeners welcome well-produced, interesting local news reports. Stations that present news reporting with consistent quality and interest will find them accepted on par with national and international news.
Finding ways to optimally integrate network and local production will be an important follow-up task to this study for both networks and stations.
The Quality of Local and National NewsMost listeners do not expect locally produced information to sound exactly like network productions. Focus group participants often remarked that they enjoyed hearing the differences in accent and regionalism of language in their local announcers. Local presenters do not have to be carbon copies of national talent. But despite welcoming these differences, there remains a standard of quality that local reporting and announcing must consistently achieve and uphold to be successful. It is important that local talent sounds mature, professional, and consistently employs good grammar and pronunciation. And use good taste in selecting and producing stories.
Public radio news, whether it is produced at NPR in Washington, in Italy by Sylvia Poggoli, in Los Angeles for Marketplace, in Boston for The World, or at a station, enjoys a unique perception of quality and credibility among listeners. When producing local information programming, a station's responsibility is to maintain and contribute to the quality that listeners already perceive and expect from the product.
Producing Local News ReportsWhy do listeners sometimes express dissatisfaction with local news reporting? One reason local reporting fails to meet expectations is when listeners notice a significant difference in quality compared to network productions. But another even more important factor may be the narrow scope and potential appeal of some local stories.
The subjects and reporting approach used in most network reports generally appeals to the broad target audience of listeners to national news programs. Whether a story originates in Maine or Ohio, Japan or Africa, the subject is chosen and the story produced in a way that it could potentially be of interest to all listeners. If the reason that a story is significant to everyone is not obvious, it is usually made clear early in the report.
This broad scope and inclusiveness may not be achieved as often in local reporting. While a well-produced report on a national or international event will be potentially interesting to most news listeners, a story about Bronx politics may not elicit universal interest in Queens. Coverage of the Detroit School System may have little value to listeners in Ann Arbor. Traffic reports from Seattle may not help listeners driving in Tacoma.
Some stations spend considerable time and effort reporting on stories that are interesting to only a small portion of their audience. If these reports are produced with a narrow scope that fails to broaden the subject to make it universally interesting, or frame the report so that a singular local issue is used as an example of a regional problem, interest levels will almost inherently be diminished
This research does not make journalistic judgments about what should be reported. It simply points out that local news will provide a more valuable audience service by producing stories that are broader in scope with more potential appeal to all news listeners. If a story truly has enough significance, it should be able to be reported in such a manner that it would potentially be interesting to most listeners.
Much of what stations produce is governed by their prevailing mindset. Conventional thinking often results in narrowly focused reporting.
It might be beneficial to think of station staff not as local reporters, but more like national correspondents stationed in your city, to report on interesting events, issues, and people in the region that would be of interest to all listeners.Another useful way to think of a local news operation is like a bureau, reporting with a quality and scope that would be comparable to a national report on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, The World, or Marketplace.
This broader scope has other potential benefits. As more stations produce reports focusing on people and events in their area, but with a more universally-appealing scope, the prospects for more sharing and exchanging of stories between news departments in the same region become much more appealing.
Many listeners perceive and define local news differently than those of us in the industry. Local news may even be an inaccurate or misleading term. Public radio might be better served by a change of mindset and begin to consider station-based reporting as "non-national news," instead of "local news."
Because most listeners do not judge news programming by its source, it is not productive to think of local news and national news as separate entities. National and local news and information programming is inexorably intertwined. A strong local news presence also strengthens national news, and vice versa.
Many public radio news listeners have a strong aversion to sensationalistic reporting, and stories they perceive to be blown out of proportion on many of the commercial media. While this research cannot suggest a blanket prohibition of stories about automobile accidents, murders, and celebrities on public radio, local stations should choose to report on subjects such as these with caution and with the knowledge that many listeners hold public radio news to a higher standard. They seek reporting that adds meaning and about issues that influence their life. They do not generally listen to public radio news for reports on subjects they could easily find on commercial radio or television.
Differences Between Groups of Listeners
The dominant themes of this research were examined carefully to determine if there were any significant differences in response based on variables including market size, region, format, gender, race, age, and giving status. The results were surprisingly consistent.
There was no significant difference in response to the main themes of the research based on any of these variables. There is nothing in the research that suggests a significant difference in the value of local news, or the willingness to listen to it and support it, based on any demographic, geographic, or utiligraphic variable.
While the opinions different groups of listeners sometimes varied by several percent, nothing in the results shows enough of a difference to cause a change of programming strategy or tactics based on a station's location, format, or composition of its audience. The main conclusions of the research are supported consistently on the different stations, and by the different types of listeners within the study.
The Financial Value of Local News
One of the ways listeners express the value of programming is by their willingness to support it financially. In the survey, listeners were asked to allocate a hypothetical gift of $100 towards several different types of public radio programming. They were free to divide the contribution in any way they chose; giving it all to one type of programming, or using it to support any or all of the program categories in any amount.
Naturally, national and international news programming received strong support. But would listeners choose to use their money to support local news? In a word, yes.
Imagine you had $100 to contribute to your public radio station, and you could divide the money to support different types of programming. How much would you give to support:
Imagine you had $100 to contribute to your public radio station, and you could divide the money to support different types of programming. How much would you give to support:
National Average
In-depth state and local news
$25.68
National news programs
$32.66
National call-in programs
$11.87
All other programs
$29.78
TOTAL
$100.00
Listeners chose to allocate almost one-third of their money to national news programming, and provided more than one-fourth of their financial contribution to support local news. While it was demonstrated in the survey that additional local news programming may not significantly influence giving habits, listeners nonetheless are willing to pay to support the product.
"The quality of local public radio news compared to what? It's still miles beyond commercial broadcasting on TV and radio."
A considerable volume of information was collected in The Local News Project research. While every conceivable question about local news reporting was not answered definitively, here is a brief summary, in a question and answer format, of the overall results that apply to all stations.
How do listeners perceive national network news programs?
Listeners perceive network programs as they are heard on their local station, not in the way they are produced by the network. A local or national underwrite credit, a local or national newscast, local time and temperature, all are perceived to be a part of the program. Local and national reporting are inexorably intertwined. They are inseparable in the minds of listeners. Several hundred different versions of programs like Morning Edition or All Things Considered are heard in markets across the country every day.
These market-to-market variations cause some legitimate logistical concerns for networks or producers. Viewing this in an adversarial manner between networks and stations is unproductive and inconsiderate to the listener. The vast majority of listeners prefer network news programs with some local content included. This makes it imperative that stations and networks cooperate to find the optimum methods of integrating national and local material.
The concept that there are specific times during programs that belong to the network or the local station is an industry notion, not a listener concern. All of the programming belongs to the listener. It must be presented for their service and convenience first, not primarily for the convenience of stations, networks, or underwriters.
What traits do most public radio news listeners have in common that influences their attitudes and listening habits?
They dislike most mainstream media coverage of news, particularly local television news. They feel that it is often lightweight, and emphasizes sensationalism over content.
They have a negative impression of most media's local news coverage, especially commercial television. This gives them pause about expanding public radio's local news coverage. Some listeners have difficulty understanding how public radio could expand local news coverage without duplicating or imitating the local coverage on commercial media.
They tend to have an above-average interest in politics and political issues.
They are more concerned about the content, production, and interest level in a news story than where it originated
They want to know "what's really going on." They crave the story behind the headlines. They want to know more about the people who influence their city, the nation, and the world. They feel that most news reporting is superficial and only scratches the surface of issues and events.
Why do listeners tune into public radio news?
They listen for what it has; intelligent, thoughtful, in-depth reports on national and international news, and well-produced human-interest stories. They listen for what it does not have; the sensationalism and shallowness of most commercial media.
While local news is not the primary motivation for tune-in, it remains a valued service for most news listeners. Most prefer a mix of international, national, state, and local news.
Are listeners more interested in national and international news than state and local news?
Public radio is the primary source of national and international news for most listeners. On the whole, public radio listeners are more interested in national and international news than in state and local news. But this should not be taken out of context.
Two important variables relate to these existing attitudes. The network programs that attracted most listeners to public radio are primarily focused on national and international news. So it is not surprising that this would be their primary interest. Second, listeners are reacting to the way local news is presented now, not necessarily how the levels of quality or interest might be changed in the future. An increase in the overall quality and interest level of local reporting is likely to also increase the value of local reporting to listeners.
What is the best time to broadcast local news programming?
Listeners would prefer to have their cake and eat it too. One indication of the way they value local news is that most prefer it to be heard during or adjacent to Morning Edition and All Things Considered, i.e. the times when they would be most likely to be listening. But listeners also wish that local news could be provided without replacing any national or international stories produced by the networks.
Short of having national and local news programs on two separate stations, the only options remaining for stations are to integrate local reporting within network drive-time programs, or to air a separate local news program. With a few exceptions, producing a separate local news program is neither realistic nor recommended. Therefore, integrating local, state, national, and international news in and around the network drive-time news programs remains the best option for most stations.
When is the best time for a station to "cover" a network report with local news?
This research cannot supply a definitive answer to this question. But it does provide some direction. One place to start is to use local pieces to freshen rollover sections of national programs whenever possible. Before taking any action, stations must remember to examine their Arbitron listening data to aid in their placement decisions. Radio usage patterns dictate that the third time some listeners are hearing a report will be the first time for many others. But quality and interest being equal, most listeners would prefer to hear a local news report for the first time instead of a repeat of a network story.
Is it important that local reports be heard at the same time every day?
No issue in the research was more definitive. Listeners would prefer that local pieces be heard at the same time every day or week. Especially during morning and afternoons, they often gauge their day by the segment of programming they are hearing [i.e. "if Carl Kasell finishes reading the news before I'm done shaving, I know I'm running late!"]
Consistency also has the likely benefit of increasing the profile and awareness of local reporting among the audience.
In short, listeners love to be surprised and delighted by the subjects, content, and treatment of news stories, but they are creatures of habit when it comes to a program's schedule and format.
A reminder: this recommendation of consistency assumes that the local reports are produced with high quality and that the subject has broad interest.
How often should stations air local newscasts?
The preferred frequency for a four-to-six-minute newscast during network programming is once per hour. Brief local headline updates may occur more often. Most listeners were not in favor of two full local newscasts per hour.
What financial value do listeners place on local news programming?
Since most listeners perceive a station's programming as a whole, not as numerous small parts, it is difficult for them to put a price on any single facet of programming. As much as Daniel Shorr or David Brancaccio may add value to their listening experience, most do not make a direct connection between the amount of financial support and any specific person or program.
There is no question that if allowed to allocate their giving, the typical news listener would choose to channel most of their support towards news programming. It is also clear that the largest amount of their support for news programming would be directed to national and international news. Nevertheless, local news received a healthy share of support. On average, news listeners allocated about one-fourth of their total financial support to local news programming.
While the quality of network reporting is a natural asset to discuss during fund raising campaigns, stations with a quality local news service may be selling themselves short by not placing some emphasis on this unique and valuable aspect of their information programming. The research suggests that news listeners should be reminded that their station provides in-depth local news reporting, and that featuring some of the best local reports during the fund raising campaign would be a benefit.
What are the most important things stations can do to increase the appeal and value of their local news programming?
Quality
A gap between the quality of many network and local news productions has long been suspected. These research results confirm that overall, local news is perceived as "very good," while network productions are considered to be "excellent." Most local news falls short of a very high standard. But how can stations improve the quality of their reporting, and what does the concept of quality mean to news listeners?
When discussing quality, listeners most often mention two factors: presentation and production.
The most common difference listeners perceive between national and local news is the use of production elements. Listeners' first impression of a local report is often an announcer reading copy, while their image of national news is a produced report. This may not always be accurate or fair, but their perception is their reality. This impression is caused in part by local newscasts that employ limited sound. But it is also a reflection of the amount and quality of production used in local reports, when compared with network programs.
Presentation is another issue. By and large, listeners are tolerant of local announcers. Their expectations are not unrealistic. They want a clear presentation, a sense of maturity and professionalism, and reasonable grammar and pronunciation. When stations do not provide this sound, it stands in stark contrast to network programming.
The most important steps stations can take to improve listener perceptions of quality are to provide consistent announcing and use network-style production in news pieces whenever appropriate. Equally important is to be sure that listeners are aware that these high quality reports are locally produced, not the product of a network. [See 'What can stations do to raise listener awareness of local news reporting?' for additional details.]
Many stations still produce stories with a narrow subject or geographical focus, stories that are not likely to be of interest to most of their listeners. To increase the impact and value of local news reporting, the subjects and the approach of the story must appeal to a broad spectrum of listeners, not just listeners living in one area or community.
This does not mean a station cannot produce reports about a specific school board or city council. It does mean that these reports should be framed in such a manner that the relevance of the story is obvious to all listeners. Every report a station produces that does not encompass the interests of all listeners limits the value and utility of local news.
What can stations do to raise listener awareness of local news reporting?
While the source of the news is relatively unimportant to most listeners, most stations want listeners to be aware of and value the coverage they provide. How can this be accomplished? It begins with the fundamentals.
Each station must determine how they choose to associate or differentiate their frequency and call letters with the network identity. There is no one right answer, but if establishing a local identity is a goal, the name of the station should be mentioned as many, if not more times, than the names NPR or PRI during network news programs. As with all issues of identity, reach and frequency will eventually win out and raise perceptions of local content provided by stations. When listeners consistently hear local reporting identified as such, levels of awareness should increase.
Consistency
Consistency is crucial to raising awareness. Local reports should be broadcast at the same time each day or week whenever practical. This is true even if stations cannot at all of their local reports at the same time. Some consistency will prove more beneficial than none. Listeners prefer, and have greater awareness of, programming segments that are heard at a specific time every week or every day. This is especially true during drive time, when many listeners establish a lifestyle routine that meshes with their radio listening.
Multi-part features
One of the best ways for stations to raise awareness of local news reporting is through multi-part reports. More listeners are likely to be aware of a local report when it is broadcast over several days. This is a function of reach and frequency. Multi-part reports are more promotable, more likely to be perceived on par with network productions, and they also encourage presentation of stories with a broader appeal to a wide audience.
Promotion and Branding
To raise listener awareness of local news reporting, stations must consistently specify that a segment or newscast is locally originated. For example, if a station wishes to raise awareness of its contribution to Morning Edition, it should consider referring to the program on the air as of "Morning Edition on WXXX" rather than "NPR's Morning Edition." Depending upon the promotion strategy, the station should be given equal, if not primary billing. These seemingly subtle distinctions can make a difference over time.
Stations should remember to promote local segments on-air. These can be specific promotions for upcoming reports, and also generic image pieces for local news. They might sound similar to the best generic promos now produced for network programming, reminding listeners that the station brings this same depth and thoughtfulness to local reporting as the networks provide for national and international news.
The results of this study demonstrate that it is mistaken to assume that listeners know about a station's local contributions to network programming automatically, without being told and reminded regularly. While airtime is often at a premium, if a locally produced in-depth news report is worth airing, it is also worth promoting. Generally, more listeners will hear the promotions for the in-depth report than will ever hear the report itself.
Local News Project I
Part Two: the National Research Questions
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