Issues

Cover Story: 2008 Women and Minorities Survey

By Bob Papper

Results from the latest RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual Survey show increases in the number of women and minorities working in—and leading—TV and radio newsrooms.


By most measures, this year has been good for women and minorities in both TV and radio news, according to the latest RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual Survey. In fact, it’s been better than good.

At 28.3 percent, there are more women news directors in television than ever before—eclipsing the old record set in 2003 by almost 2 percent. The percentage of minority news directors in TV also reached an all-time high of 15.5 percent. That’s a percent and a half above the previous high in 2000. Overall, minorities in TV news—at 23.6 percent—reached the second-highest level ever, not far behind the peak reached in 2001. The percentage of minorities at non-Hispanic stations also rose, but more modestly, coming in third behind 2001 and 2006. And at 9.1, the percentage of minority TV news directors at non-Hispanic stations reached the highest level in the eight years we’ve tracked that statistic.

Minority numbers in radio rose as well. After years of steady shrinkage, the percentage of minorities rose to 11.8 percent. That’s nowhere near a record, but it’s far better than the last several years.

Not all the numbers were on the plus side. The number of minority radio news directors, which had spiked last year, fell back down to where it had been.

The bigger picture appears more mixed. In the past 18 years, the minority population in the United States has risen 8.1 percent; but the minority workforce in TV news is up 5.8 percent, and the minority workforce in radio is up by just 1 percent. Still, TV news diversity is far ahead of newspaper diversity (see sidebar).

Minority Population v. Minority Broadcast Workforce

Broadcast News Work Force —Television

Broadcast News Work Force —Radio

Television: The number of African Americans held steady; the number of Hispanics rose 1.6 percent; the number of Asian Americans rose 0.4 percent; and Native Americans increased by 0.1 percent.Among non-Hispanic stations, the minority workforce rose to 20.1 percent. That’s up from 19.4 percent last year, but it’s still below the figure from two years ago (20.4 percent). At non-Hispanic stations, the minority break down is: 10.5 percent African American; 6.2 percent Hispanic; 2.9 percent Asian American; and 0.5 percent Native American. At non-Hispanic stations, the number of Asian Americans rose 0.6 percent; African Americans increased by 0.1 percent; while the number of Hispanics and Native Americans went unchanged.

Overall, 82.1 percent of the TV news workforce at Hispanic stations are Hispanic. Another 15.4 percent are white, 1.8 percent are African American, 0.3 percent Asian American and 0.4 percent Native American.

Men outnumber women for all ethnic groups except Asian Americans and Native Americans. There are 10 percent more African American men than women; 21.4 percent more Hispanic men than women; and 65.1 percent more Caucasian men than women. In contrast, there are 50 percent more Asian American women as men, and 50 percent more Native American women as men.

Radio: The picture was mixed. The percentage of African Americans and Hispanics shot up while the percentage of Asian Americans and Native Americans dropped.

Broadcast News Directors … Television - 2008

Broadcast News Directors … Radio - 2008

Television: At 15.5, the percentage of minority TV news directors set a new record, eclipsing the old one of 14 percent set back in 2000. In TV, all minority news director groups rose.Minority news directors are most commonly found in the biggest markets (at 25.8 percent) and least often in the smallest markets (at 10.3 percent). But minority news directors are also most likely to be in the smallest news departments (at 36.0 percent). Minority news directors are most commonly found in the West (25.4 percent) and the South (15.1 percent) as opposed to the Midwest (7.1 percent) or Northeast (6.7 percent).

At non-Hispanic stations, the percentage of minority TV news directors rose to an all-time high of 9.1 percent, up from last year’s 6.5 percent and the previous all-time high of 8.6 percent the year before. The number of Hispanic news directors at non-Hispanic stations rose from last year’s 2.5 percent to this year’s 3.0 percent. The number of African American news directors rose from 2.2 percent last year to 3.3 percent. The number of Asian Americans went from 1.1 percent to 1.8 percent, and Native Americans edged up from 0.7 percent to 0.9 percent.

Radio: In contrast, every minority group of radio news directors fell back from last year’s increases. There were no consistent and meaningful patterns based on ownership, market size or geography.

Women in Local TV News – 2008