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Report: News Directors Taking on Different Tasks

More than a third of news directors’ primary responsibility not focused on news

News directors at radio stations are being asked to wear more hats than in the past according the annual “News Director Files” study from Radio Television Digital News Association. The study says that 38.3% of news directors’ responsibilities are not dealing with news at both commercial and noncommercial stations.

There are a number of other ways that news directors have to split their time now per RTDNA’s report. Two-thirds (66.2%) of news directors said they have other responsibilities beyond news. Nearly half (46.7%) of news directors also deal with other administrative roles; 22.4% split their time on-air; 5.6% said they handle both production and sales responsibilities. However, 9% of stations aid they don’t have a news director at all, splitting the job among a variety of station employees.

That relates to another one of the study’s findings, the decrease in full-time news directors at a station. A total of 70% of news directors say they are full-time station employees, that down from 2015’s 71.4%. Noncommercial stations news directors are proving to be full-time employees just 59.3% of the time, while that number reaches 73.1% with commercial stations.

To read RTDNA’s full report, click here.

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