The Pew Research Center has released its extensive "State Of The News Media 2013" report, looking at the status of journalism in America. Focusing on the radio/audio portion of the report, the Pew Research finds that "In general, listening to content seems to be as popular as ever and accessible in more formats than ever. But, aside from a scattering of stations around the country devoted to all-news programming, commercial radio news is mostly relegated to top-of-the-hour news headlines produced by an outside network."

Pew adds that "Financially, the picture does not bode well for traditional radio. AM/FM on-air election advertising brought in $124 million in 2012, but most other areas saw steep declines, resulting in a flat year over all.  Online-only and satellite radio, on the other hand, had better years than in the past, with more positive long-term forecasts.  And new legislation under consideration by Congress could be an added windfall to many online-only stations. Pandora alone could as much as double in value."

According to Pew's media consumption survey, 33 percent of adults said they listened to "news radio yesterday," which is notably down from 43 percent in 2000 and 52 percent in 1990, but higher than the percentage of respondents who reported reading a newspaper "yesterday" (29 percent).

The vast majority of these listeners (87 percent) got their radio news through AM/FM broadcasts while just six percent listened through satellite news radio, four percent through a computer and four percent through a handheld device such as a cell phone or MP3 player.

The Pew study also found that for the first time since 2004, when HD radio receivers became available for retail sale, more radio stations dropped their HD signal than adopted the technology. By December 2012, 2,048 radio stations were broadcasting an HD signal, down from 2,103 during the same period in 2011, according to BIA Financial Network data and analysis from the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

You can find the complete audio section of the Pew Research Center study here.