Long-time industry observer and talent agent (his day job), Rick Gevers, pointed out a rather uncomfortable truth in the latest edition of his must-read weekly newsletter, which tracks the comings and goings of television news directors. He chose not to attend last week’s annual conference of the Radio Television Digital News Association, held in New Orleans. No criticism from us about that, we chose not to attend as well.

But in Gevers' case, it’s the first RTDNA conference he has missed since 1978. Even our journalist-impaired math skills can calculate that it was the end of a 47-year streak. Being a class act, Rick didn’t make a big deal about it. So leave it to us to point out why it really is.

It isn’t as if Rick doesn’t like to visit New Orleans in June (though the weather there can be less than hospitable at this time of year). In fact, he was in the Crescent City last week, attending the annual convention of IRE, the Investigative Reporters and Editors association.

Now, Rick didn’t spell out exactly why he broke his nearly 50-year streak of attending the annual RTDNA convention, but in his Sunday night dispatch, he pointed out the really uncomfortable stat–one that had nothing to do with his beloved Indiana Pacers losing a tough Game 7 and in turn, the NBA Championship to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The attendance at the IRE Convention topped 1,650 people. The attendance at the RTDNA Convention was a mere 180 people.

We’ll quantify that differently: Nearly ten times as many people attended the convention for a specialized group of journalists as attended the once premier annual event in broadcast journalism. The one where Edward R. Murrow once gave a little speech that George Clooney turned into part of his Broadway play, which made more money in a single week of its run than any Broadway production ever has in a single week.

And so we’ll ask the uncomfortable question: “Wither the RTDNA?”

Let’s make our position clear: we are in no way supporting the demise of the association. We believe that the RTDNA plays a crucial role in the industry. But you would be forgiven if you had stated, as one RTDNA convention attendee did to us, that their visit to New Orleans left them “wondering about the future of the business.”

We’ve been around long enough to remember when the association was still known by a similar abbreviation as the RTNDA, which stood for the Radio Television News Directors Association. It hosted a well-attended and vibrant annual conference back when we first started going. We may have even landed a job or two there over the years. (Yes, we have attended for a few decades, but not as many as Gevers.) The RTNDA event was held each year in a different city, and it had solid attendance, not to mention a substantial agenda and perhaps a few memorable parties in its evenings. (Thanks for all those memories, CNN Newsource.)

When attendance started to waver, the RTDNA tried some different ideas to boost attendance at its annual convention. It was held on a couple of occasions with other journalism-focused groups such as the NABJ, NAHJ, and others. If memory serves us correctly, it was also once held adjacent to the annual NAB show in Las Vegas, the broadcast industry’s premiere (and best-attended) yearly event.

A couple of years ago, when the RTDNA convention came to our hometown of Minneapolis, attendance was small enough to be truly surprising to an informal group of us who had gathered for an annual dinner at each RTDNA for years. Part of the dinner conversation that evening at the legendary Murray’s Steak House was about the difficult, but obvious question:

“What’s going to happen to the RTDNA if nobody shows up to their convention?”

The question extends beyond the future of the event to perhaps that of the association itself. The annual convention is one of the primary sources of income for the organization. At least that is what we’re told by people familiar with the inner workings of the group. That was one reason why it moved away from holding its event with other organizations, even if the strength in numbers might be evident to anyone counting attendance.

Another question to consider is who was attending the annual RTDNA event–and what they were getting out of it. A cursory comparison of the agendas of last week’s RTDNA event and the IRE convention tells part of the story. Over the years, the IRE event has established a solid reputation as a premier training and networking opportunity for journalists in investigative positions across the country. On LinkedIn, we saw a few posts from folks attending Gray Media’s company day at the IRE convention in New Orleans. They had 140 journalists in attendance. While Gray has been investing heavily in investigative reporting across its entire group of stations, and deserve to be commended for their efforts in the space, the fact that there were more people from the group owner attending the IRE than the total number of people at the RTDNA event days earlier is pretty stunning to us.

Do we have the answers for what the RTDNA board of directors should do to address this issue? Hardly.

However, a question of relevance must be addressed in a concrete and meaningful manner — and there is some urgency about doing so. Yes, we are aware of all the points regarding the current state of the broadcast news business, not to mention broadcasting itself being in a state of decline. Yes, we know that news budgets are being slashed, much like scenes in a Wes Craven movie. And apparently, many news directors and their companies have decided that attending the annual RTDNA event is no longer a priority, especially when larger groups hold their own internal meetings for news department leadership.

All that notwithstanding, if something doesn’t fundamentally change for the RTDNA and quickly, we have to wonder what’s next for the organization? At this point, it may be worthwhile to ask the leadership of the IRE to consider merging the two organizations' events in 2026 or beyond.

At least then, maybe Rick Gevers would be able to start a new attendance streak.