NEW YORK (AP) — Defying trends that have hurt the news industry, the average broadcast television station in the United States has added nearly an hour's worth of newscast time to its day over the past three years, a study released Wednesday found.

On weekdays, a typical station airs five and a half hours of local news, according to an annual survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association and Hofstra University. Affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox show more news than independent stations.

While newspapers have struggled to find revenue sources as readership decreases, local news is generally a steady and reliable income generator for local stations, said Bob Papper, the Hofstra professor who conducts the annual survey.