Localism and Morning Edition Research
How listeners evaluate local newscasts, breaks and segments within NPR's Morning Edition
Morning Edition is public radio's most important program, yet what
listeners actually hear varies widely as stations insert their local
newscasts and news features.
In consultation with the Morning Edition Grad School, Walrus Research
designed a series of program testing sessions to determine how listeners
evaluate the local coverage that stations insert into Morning Edition.
Over 300 listeners used electronic response units to enter their
moment-to-moment reaction to a variety of airchecks carefully selected
from NPR stations around the country.
The overall goal of this research was to build audience for NPR's Morning Edition and to enhance the
value of NPR's Morning Edition to listeners, thereby increasing
revenue from listeners and underwriters.
PRPD Conference presentation (2007):
EARS videographs that show how listeners reacted to airchecks:
Complete research report including analysis of data and written verbatims:
The research was funded by NPR through the Local News Initiative.