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.