National Pubic Radio has had the highest ratings period in its history, some 20.5 million weekly listeners for its news programming, according to a report by Arbitron published last month in the Washington Post.
This number does not include digital consumption including podcasts and audio streaming.
Earlier this month at NPR headquarters in Washington, I sat down with Vivian Schiller, the newly appointed President and CEO at National Public Radio, to chat about the changing media landscape.
She says that while the tough financial climate is impacting sponsorships and revenue from investments, for many of its local stations, listenership is up.
She says that fund raising is strong for many stations as communities increasingly see their local stations as an important local news and information source. She says the closing of local papers is hightening the value of local papers.
Here's more on Vivian's view of the public radio's "hyper local" value — as she told Mediabistro earlier this month.
New Layoffs at NPR
While listenership is up, belt tightening continues at NPR. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that has NPR laid off 13 employees. Here's how Vivian explained the layoffs to David Kaplan at paidContent.
— Andy Plesser, Executive Producer
