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Audience & Distribution Index Report 2024

Audience & Distribution Index Report 2024

In its most recent annual survey of its network of nonprofit news organizations, INN focused deeply on examining audience and distribution. Drawing on survey responses from 346 INN members and supplemented by interviews with a subset of members, this report explores the most pressing questions related to nonprofit news outlet audience strategy and trends.

The report aims to serve as a useful resource to the nonprofit news sector, helping to answer key questions that INN’s members, partners, funders and colleagues are asking as these news outlets define, grow and serve direct and third-party audiences.

INN’s Audience & Distribution Index Report was published on October 21, 2024. Previous Index reports are archived.

Methods

About the survey: INN distributed the survey online in January 2024 to 409 INN Network newsrooms, excluding service organizations that are also INN members. Ninety percent, or 370 organizations, completed the survey. Survey language is provided here. The data do not scientifically represent all North American nonprofit news outlets because not all of them belong to INN, including an array of public media stations. Cautiously interpret specific year-over-year comparisons; this report draws directional trends across the field.

A note on the cohort used for this report: This report includes the data of 346 of the 370 news organizations that completed the survey. The report does not include data provided by 20 members from the public media sector due to systematic differences in how they report revenue and expenses. Four more outlets were excluded because they are not primarily publishers.

See here for more information on this report’s methods.

Audience & Distribution Index Report Credits

  • INN’s Index research team: Emily Roseman, Ha Ta, Michele McLellan and Jesse Holcomb
  • Data visualization: Ha Ta
  • Editor: Marquita Brown
  • Research advisory board: Rick Edmonds, Nicolás Ríos, Eba Hamid-Rivera and Nicole Rocchio
  • Data collection assistance: Sherise Immanuela and Ethan Meyers
  • With special thanks to INN’s audience team: Sam Cholke and Jasmyne Ricard
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