TV news staff numbers slip

The latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey found a mixed picture on TV news staffing. The average size of a local TV newsroom fell slightly, but the median size remained exactly the same.

The average dropped because fewer than usual really large stations returned the survey in 2014. That happens some years. The number of TV stations originating local news actually went up by two in 2014 -- to 719 stations. That reverses an eight-year trend of fewer newsrooms.

I put the total local TV news employment at 27,300, down about 400 from 2013. That same year, ASNE found that newspaper newsroom staff fell 6.4% from the year before. That's approaching three times the previous year's drop of 2.4%. That took the total daily newspaper news staff down from the record low of 40,600 in 2012 to a new record low of 38,000 the following year, spread among nearly 1,400 newspapers (twice the number of local TV newsrooms).