The major difference, it seems to me, is that newspapers are not licensed by the FCC, where radio and television stations are still regulated by licensure, which comes with certain requirements to broadcast to communities; also, while local (or rural) television and radio stations have experienced intense consolidation (from the Reagan-era legacy of deregulation), it’s not clear that they are ceasing nor closing their operations, as many newspaper outlets seem to be doing. For example, in Duluth, MN, the NBC and CBS affiliate stations were owned by different owners at one time; today, they’re merged, and owned by Granite Broadcasting, which also owns stations in Michigan, Illinois, New York, and California (for a solid account of radio station conglomeration, see Eric Klinenberg’s work on Clear Channel).

At the risk of sounding reductive, the economics of owning a television or radio station remains a highly profitable enterprise, while newspapers, while not un-profitable, are experiencing shrinking margins.

What would be really cool to see is a graphic that can clearly represent the changing nature of media ownership for television, radio, and film corporations. I’ve yet to see one that captures the complexity or scale of the way in which ownership of media properties has changed.

Thanks for your question/comment. I don’t know of any great infographic on the question of whether or not radio is growing, declining, or staying flat, I recommend reading Eric Klinenberg’s book: “Fighting for Air: The battle to control America’s airwaves“. He deals with both TV and radio, but focuses mostly on radio. He looks at the way consolidation within radio broadcasting has impacted the decrease in the ‘localness’ of the content coming from local stations. ClearChannel has bought up many local radio stations in order to have a larger number of ears to sell to advertisers. They then cut costs by broadcasting the same music and pre-packaged national news out through all these ‘local’ broadcasting hubs. In this scenario, local stations may still be broadcasting, but they are broadcasting the same thing as a bunch of other small radio stations around the country.

It is highly likely that all of this is being done without needing to pay someone to sit at the smaller radio stations, which can make it difficult for local communities to get out information about breaking news stories like floods and other severe weather, for instance.

Hope that’s a helpful resource for you.