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Job losses, falling ratings, consolidation: What’s behind the decline in local TV news
- Thread starter nomadcowatbk
- Start date
Interesting article. This paragraph sums it up:
So what's behind the decline? Viewers moving to streaming. Sound familiar? It's the same thing that's killing broadcast radio.
Meanwhile, the FCC thinks that granting a merger between two big TV companies will help local TV news. So far, that hasn't happened.
Meanwhile, what's the future of local TV news?
The former TV journalists are taking matters into their own hands and starting their own podcasts to fill the void.
So what's behind the decline? Viewers moving to streaming. Sound familiar? It's the same thing that's killing broadcast radio.
Meanwhile, the FCC thinks that granting a merger between two big TV companies will help local TV news. So far, that hasn't happened.
Meanwhile, what's the future of local TV news?
The former TV journalists are taking matters into their own hands and starting their own podcasts to fill the void.
True too and we seen similar stuff at Newspapers. The Recent Washington Post cuts had the same story the audience is getting their national News content from wire services like AP and Reuters. But Washington Post had to deal with Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and USA Today and compete against each other for the same national news readership in that case. Plus the general decline for print editions escalated the cuts at many legacy outlets.
Local news, in my household, has been falling off since the 70's when WABC in Noo Yawk began its silly "happy news" newscasts. Before that we had Cronkite with stories that affected (or should have affected) most Americans. After stations all over the USA adopted the WABC model we got stories that were video in nature (with talking heads standing in front of a fire station talking about a fire related event). It was novel at first then as time passed viewers realized it was mostly worthless fluff. Big deals were made of the talking heads (and still is) but they are quickly forgotten.
Now we get a few headlines, mostly incomplete, followed by advertisements not too carefully disguised as news, repetitive reminders (it's hot in Phoenix - drink water) and human interest stories which contribute nothing to the national intelligence. All this junk is constantly interrupted by numerous inane commercials - most of which are identical newscast after newscast.
Do we really need the local weather repeated 3 times in 30 minutes?
National news is only fractionally more informative and in some cases (cough, cough Fox News) is outright propaganda.
The various news organizations have successfully trained a whole generation, perhaps two, to completely ignore daily newscasts. Their demise is their own damned fault.
Now we get a few headlines, mostly incomplete, followed by advertisements not too carefully disguised as news, repetitive reminders (it's hot in Phoenix - drink water) and human interest stories which contribute nothing to the national intelligence. All this junk is constantly interrupted by numerous inane commercials - most of which are identical newscast after newscast.
Do we really need the local weather repeated 3 times in 30 minutes?
National news is only fractionally more informative and in some cases (cough, cough Fox News) is outright propaganda.
The various news organizations have successfully trained a whole generation, perhaps two, to completely ignore daily newscasts. Their demise is their own damned fault.
they've also trained people to believe OTA TV no longer exists or is some kind of illegal hack, they never mention antennas during carriage disputes
No matter how inevitable the decline in newspaper and local broadcast news is, it is not healthy for a democratic republic (such as the U.S.) to not have similar common news sources that are shared by a majority of the population. The rise in using the Internet for reading news has resulted in a plethora of "news" sites that offer commentary and misinformation to willing participants. And that in turn has assisted in fueling attacks on democratic (with a small d of course) establishments not only in the U.S. but worldwide as well. The recent attempted coup in South Korea is a great example of this as those seeking to overthrow the country's democratically-elected government used postings on social media sites to bolster their cause.
No. The audience is getting its news from Instagram and TikTok. Or not at all. AP and Reuters are not doing well, financially, either.
The fundamental story with TV news is that no one is watching. The Boston Globe did a story on the ratings of their local newscasts a couple years ago and the numbers were tiny.
All of the Boston stations combined had a rating (not share) in the 25-54 age cell of about 3.7 for the late news (11pm), which was the strongest rated daypart in Boston. If you got a Nielsen TV report from 25 years ago, it wasn't this way.
As @landtuna suggests, TV news doubled down on their boomer audience 20-30 years ago, and no one ever thought to evolve with the times. So now that boomers are out of the prime demographics, there's no one left.
There is a big difference between radio and TV. What killed radio was the advent of on-demand service. There is a long-standing opinion that FM radio doesn't play enough of my favorite bands, and with streaming I can listen to as much Vince Gill as I want.
What killed TV was price. They had sort of solved the on-demand problem by creating a bunch of niche channels, like the varieties of MTV and VH1. The media companies saw the cable bundle as a goose laying golden eggs, offering something for everyone, and resisting ala carte offerings.
They did that as the average US household demographics changed, reducing the value of a bundle which offered both Nickelodeon to Jeffy and Hallmark to Granny. And Netflix and YouTube were offering entertainment at much lower prices.
Media companies and cable companies coming up with ways to serve entertainment at cheaper prices might have saved them. But they didn't, so we'll never know.
In some ways yes, in some ways no. To me, the big thing for both was the loss of the mass audience caused by unlimited choices. The loss of the mass audience disrupted the business model, because advertisers want a mass audience. So that loss of money certainly affected how radio sounds, and is now starting to affect how local TV looks, and is starting to affect network and cable TV. To me, the money is what drives the content.
There was a documentary in 2011 when TV News faced a downturn around the time the 2008 recession took place. Note the owners of the local TV Stations have changed since then such as Nexstar, Gray, Sinclair, EW Scripps, Hearst owning the most local TV Stations. Back then TV apps were not as mainstream as it is today. Also some of the solutions were not completely certain on how to fight “News Deserts/blackouts” at the time of the film.
We had past threads on how newspapers faced similar issues. Yes as in small town newspapers shutting down to companies like USA Today Inc and Alden Media owning the most newspapers contributing to those issues we are seeing TV face.
Washington Post could fold entire sports section
https://www.semafor.com/article/01/25/2026/rumors-of-staffing-cuts-spook-washington-post-newsroom https://www.aol.com/news/cash-strapped-washington-post-could-221446804.html These are some of the cuts hitting Washington Post. Some of this is how the news outlet has to compete against other...
radiodiscussions.com
Which Daily Newspaper Will Be The Next One To Fold?
I live in the Minneapolis Saint Paul area. We have two competing daily newspapers. the Minnesota Star Tribune and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press. It will be interesting to see how much longer we will have competing daily newspapers in this area. Based on research, including data often cited from...
radiodiscussions.com
"The News About the News Business Is Getting Grimmer"
Local news is under even more stress than before, with an increasing number of "news deserts" where local coverage is nearly nonexistent. The only bright spot, according to this article, is local TV news. Gift link (New York Times): The News About the News Business Is Getting Grimmer
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Gannett changing name to USA Today Co.
The Gannett name was well known from its broadcasting+publishing incarnation, but this is technically a different company. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/11/04/gannett-renamed-usa-today-co/87087585007/ In 2015 the legacy Gannett spun off its publishing arm into a new company...
radiodiscussions.com
The decline of newspaper revenues and circulation
Radio plays a bit part in this analysis (in one graph) but some interesting parallels could be drawn to what's been happening to newspapers. The Updated (and scary) Circulation and Revenue Figures for Newspapers
radiodiscussions.com
You bring that up a lot, yet offer no solutions. The way to have a common news source is to shut down competition and replace all news with the government. A democracy by definition means you have lots of diverse views and opinions. So that comes with the territory. Common news sources is what you get in a dictatorship.
The problem with your argument is that no single Internet channel has replaced cable TV and broadcast radio and television for mass audiences; instead, small chunks of that mass audience have drifted to individual Internet channels that match their wants and views.
If this is the case, then why are advertisers exiting the broadcast media en masse for the Internet? The answer to that question is a simple one that goes beyond the movement of the mass audience to smaller portions viewing and listening to Internet channels; namely, the ability of the advertising companies to target individual Internet users with personalized ads based on their IP addresses.
We've already seen that on this very site. A week or so ago, I read a posting from someone who had signed up for the site and then began receiving ads for various radios after he had viewed the site. The advertiser in question had obviously followed his/her posting patterns, found the person's IP address, and then sent him/her targeted ads. You see, advertisers don't really want a lot of people viewing or hearing their ads anymore; or, to be more precise, advertisers want a lot of people who they are absolutely sure are more likely to buy their products than an audience that is bigger but includes people who could care less about the commercials they are hearing and seeing. While OTA broadcasters can target the audience somewhat with specialized formats and shows, the Internet has taken all of this to a new level that OTA broadcasters, no matter how hard they try, will never be able to achieve.
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Not necessarily. During the 1960s, the U.S. had three healthy TV networks and a plethora of local and national newspapers from which people got their news. What separated them from today was that all were determined to report verifiably factual information, something that is not true in today's Internet environment.
There are actually several answers to the question. There IS a mass audience for Spotify or Sirius as a thing. Just not for the individual channels. So if reaching a mass is an advertiser goal, digital streaming has a bigger mass number than any broadcast company. Even iHeart's streaming service reaches fewer people than Apple or Spotify. I think what broadcasters are hoping for with new FCC ownership rules is to find a way to get broadcasting to have a mass national number that's competitive with streaming.
That may have been their determination, but there were those at the time who disagreed with the information. Southern TV & radio stations pre-empted network coverage of civil rights marches and protests in their areas. Newspapers often reflected the opinions and biases of their owners. Citizen Kane was based on the Hearsts. So not everything was as "factual" as you might want to portray it. Once again, that's all to be expected in a democracy, and the constitution allows for that kind of variation in point of view. It's ALL protected free speech.
But I'm arguing that reaching a mass audience, many of whose members could care less about the advertiser and buying the product(s) being sold, is no longer the goal of many advertisers, especially national advertisers.
They buy numbers, and they want that to be the biggest possible number. The base number for some streaming sites is bigger than broadcasting. And THEN they can narrowcast their message to the people they want to reach. Streaming can handle the diversification of the audience in ways that broadcasting can't.
Having said that, the data the advertisers get from streaming isn't the same as what they get from broadcasters. So yes, they can target their ads to one person, but the data is based on ISP and browser, generally speaking. It only is detailed if they're reaching a subscriber who has given them demographic information such as age and education.
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City Cast Moves To Plug DC News Gaps Left By Washington Post Cuts.
Graham Holdings is expanding City Cast’s Washington newsroom, adding four journalists and ramping up its daily local podcast, positioning podcasting as a backstop after the Washington Post’s deep layoffs. “We’re
Well Graham Media Group has recently promoted "City Cast" Podcasts for some parts of the country. Its a case of a mass media outlet that owns TV stations like KPRC-TV Houston and WDIV-TV Detroit and is the former owner of Washington Post. But in Graham's case they see the writing and respond to where their audience is going and the money demos are at in where this podcast is released.
Chicken-or-the-egg…which came first, people seeking an alternate reality or outlets catering to it?
What national newspapers were there in the 60’s? Yes, we had the WSj, but it was, back then, almost totally business. We had the fairly niche Christian Science Monitor, but nothing else. On the other hand, Time, Newsweek, U.S.News filled any void not covered by local press. I don’t even mention very limited ones like the Daily Worker.
Not really. If you looked New York City, the various dailies definitely had different areas of focus and editorial opinion. This was true whether comparing the New York papers or the Press and Plain Dealer in Cleveland.