NPR newsmags seen as engines for future growth in pubradio news audience

The latest analysis from public radio's Grow the Audience project identifies a "short list" of market factors that drive performance of individual NPR News stations--namely education levels, competition within each market for NPR News listeners and the presence of key psychographic segments. The report [PDF], published online last week by Station Resource Group and Walrus Research, concludes that strategies to grow the public radio news audience start with the two most-listened to programs, NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. In addition, the analysts predict that the cume ratings for NPR News would grow substantially if hybrid news/classical music stations in Houston, Tampa and Atlanta went to all-news formats.