United States Agency for Global Media

USAGM attracts record audience of 410 million

November 15, 2022

Washington, D.C. — The measured weekly audience for U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) programming grew to 410 million people in fiscal year 2022, according to the agency’s Performance and Accountability Report submitted today to Congress.  

The audience grew by 16 million adults, in the face of a global environment where autocratic regimes are increasingly impeding access to independent media or criminalizing its consumption. 

“This audience growth, despite sometimes draconian crackdowns on free media, proves what we’ve long known — that people will go to great lengths to seek out the truth,” said USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett. “The increase in audience and improvements in other impact measures laid out in this report speak to a worldwide hunger for accurate and reliable reporting.” 

In FY 2022, USAGM measured audiences grew in key countries and regions around the world. In Nigeria, the audience has nearly doubled since it was last measured in 2018, to more than 37 million adults weekly. In Latin America, new data revealed measured audience growth of 22 percent, adding more than 12 million new consumers to the number reported in FY 2021. USAGM also continued to reach large audiences in countries of key national security interest, despite efforts to block independent reporting in markets including Afghanistan, Russia, and Iran. 

USAGM’s web and mobile traffic continued strong growth in FY 2022, with an average of more than an 18% increase across the networks.  

USAGM’s networks — the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks — deliver news and programming via radio, television, and internet in 63 languages. 

A sixth USAGM entity, the Open Technology Fund, provides tools to help audiences overcome internet restrictions and surveillance. In FY 2022, visits to USAGM networks’ websites through OTF-supported anti-censorship technologies almost doubled to more than 13 million per week.  

“On behalf of those seeking independent, fact-based reporting, I want to thank the many brave women and men at our networks working under difficult, at times even life-threatening conditions, to share free media with the world,” added CEO Bennett. 

Research conducted to estimate the agency’s global audience adheres to standards developed by the Conference of International Broadcasters’ Audience Research Service and reports the number of unique individuals who access USAGM content, or what is referred to as the unduplicated audience. This global audience estimate is just one element in USAGM’s annual performance report. The agency also measures impact based on quantitative and qualitative data on a wide range of factors, including program quality and credibility, engagement with content, and audience understanding of current events.