For decades, the public media system has relied on a narrow slice of data—primarily from Community Service Grant (CSG) recipients and NPR/PBS member stations—to understand audience behavior, infrastructure needs, and service impact. While valuable, these data sets leave out hundreds of rural, tribal, and community licensees whose realities look very different from their urban and well-resourced peers. These are the very stations that have depended most on CPB’s stabilizing support—and now face the greatest vulnerability in a post-CPB landscape.
When national data excludes our stations, the sector misunderstands itself. We lose visibility into who community radio serves, how service is delivered, where gaps exist, and what unique value small and rural stations provide as civic infrastructure. This invisibility makes it harder to advocate, harder to plan, and harder to build a resilient, equitable future for all public media—not just the largest organizations.
That is why NFCB will be launching the Rural Research Study in 2026, a first-of-its-kind national effort designed to bring rural, tribal, and community stations into the center of the data that shapes our field.
What the Rural Research Study Will Do
The Rural Research Study will conduct a nationally representative survey of more than 4,500 rural Americans, supplemented by a control group of urban respondents for key comparisons. The study will explore:
- Access to news, information, and civic resources
- Technology and broadband limitations
- Trust in media and perceptions of public and community media
- Local information needs and community engagement
- How people discover, use, and value radio and digital services
To ensure the research reflects the full diversity of rural America, the study will be bilingual (English/Spanish) and include advanced analytic modeling to identify patterns of need, opportunity, and service gaps.
Building on lessons from our earlier Reaching Unmet Needs (RUN) study, we will reach deeper into communities often missed by traditional research methods. NFCB is partner with organizations like
- Radio Bilingüe to ensure that Spanish-speaking rural audiences are fully represented
- Native Public Media to help meaningfully include Tribal Nations as participants and define research questions that matter to their communities
This study is not just about collecting data—it’s about centering the communities our stations were built to serve.
Why Data Matters for Community Radio—Especially Now
In this moment of profound transition for public media, data is not optional. It is essential.
For Advocacy
As federal funding structures evolve, we must be able to demonstrate—clearly, credibly, and repeatedly—the public value community radio delivers every day. Decision-makers cannot champion what they cannot see. This research will give us the evidence base we need to protect small stations, rural audiences, Tribal communities, and volunteer-run media organizations.
For Understanding Our Sector
NFCB members have a different service model than large NPR affiliates. You operate with smaller budgets, rely more heavily on volunteers, and serve communities that face deeper infrastructure and information inequities. We learned through RUN that rural listeners depend on radio for emergency communication, local reporting, and cultural connection in ways that national averages simply don’t capture. We also learned from the Public Radio Tech Survey (PRTS) that community radio listeners have unique habits and values distinct from metropolitan audiences.
Without data that reflects these realities, the sector risks building tools, strategies, and policy responses that don’t fit your needs.
For Station Strategy and Sustainability
NFCB will use study findings to:
- Identify where local news and civic-information gaps persist
- Help stations understand audience behavior and unmet needs
- Showcase the local impact of community radio in ways funders can see and trust
- Strengthen your cases for support, grants, partnerships, and underwriting
And most importantly—NFCB will not just hand you a report.
We will develop webinars, user guides, and trainings to help stations translate data into action. This means practical tools for fundraising, programming, underwriting, storytelling, and community engagement.
A Future Where Your Stations Are Seen
Community radio has always been the connective tissue of rural America and historically marginalized communities not centered in mainstream media —trusted, accessible, and deeply rooted in place. But without data, our impact can go unnoticed in national conversations. The Rural Research Study is our opportunity to change that—to ensure your service, your audiences, and your communities are visible, valued, and counted.
This research will help shape the next chapter of public media—and community radio will finally be on the map where it belongs.
If you would like to learn more or support the study, stay tuned for updates in upcoming newsletters or email rima@nfcb.org.
