Billions in political campaign advertising revenue will disguise it, but 2020 will be the year when local television news begins the downward slide that has plagued local newspapers.
Local TV stations will still be highly profitable in 2020, following the proven cyclical pattern in which revenue increases in election years and decreases in non-election years. This, along with still-robust retransmission and licensing fees, will suggest a vitality in local television news that’s actually being undercut by a shrinking and aging audience.
Cord-cutting is changing the way audiences consume content. Some consumers are dropping their cable subscriptions, opting only for streaming options like Disney+, HBO Now, and Netflix that are thought of as “add-on services” and therefore include no local content. Those people will then have limited to no exposure to local television news. With other streaming services positioned as cable replacements — including Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV, and YouTubeTV — the availability of local television content varies substantially by market and channel. But even when local content is available, the enormous amount of other engaging content pulls on people’s time and attention. That will leave less time and attention that are to be spent on local television news.
Because of cord-cutting and young people’s changing relationships with the places where they live, the audience for local TV news is aging. Just 18 percent of adults 18 to 29 years old say they often get news from their local television stations. That’s compared to 57 percent of those 65 years and older. The graying of the local television news audience will continue.
Local television news is produced as a market-wide product in a media environment where audience-specific, targeted content is thriving. Too few local television stations are utilizing the opportunities afforded by digital platforms to serve niche audiences in their marketplaces. And even the best of that content is often difficult to find on their websites, which are typically not user-friendly, or on their crowded social media streams, which pair breaking news with evergreen and more targeted content.
If local TV stations want to remain the vibrant sources of information they’ve been historically, they must avoid the two tropes that marked newspapers’ downfall: “Young people will age into consuming the news” (they won’t) and “Habits don’t change” (they do). Local TV stations should use today’s favorable revenue flows to actively invest in serving the diversity of the marketplaces in which they’re based, delivering thoughtfully targeted content to audiences through a multitude of social and digital channels.
Rachel Davis Mersey is associate dean of research and professor at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, [and] Integrated Marketing Communications.
Billions in political campaign advertising revenue will disguise it, but 2020 will be the year when local television news begins the downward slide that has plagued local newspapers.
Local TV stations will still be highly profitable in 2020, following the proven cyclical pattern in which revenue increases in election years and decreases in non-election years. This, along with still-robust retransmission and licensing fees, will suggest a vitality in local television news that’s actually being undercut by a shrinking and aging audience.
Cord-cutting is changing the way audiences consume content. Some consumers are dropping their cable subscriptions, opting only for streaming options like Disney+, HBO Now, and Netflix that are thought of as “add-on services” and therefore include no local content. Those people will then have limited to no exposure to local television news. With other streaming services positioned as cable replacements — including Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV, and YouTubeTV — the availability of local television content varies substantially by market and channel. But even when local content is available, the enormous amount of other engaging content pulls on people’s time and attention. That will leave less time and attention that are to be spent on local television news.
Because of cord-cutting and young people’s changing relationships with the places where they live, the audience for local TV news is aging. Just 18 percent of adults 18 to 29 years old say they often get news from their local television stations. That’s compared to 57 percent of those 65 years and older. The graying of the local television news audience will continue.
Local television news is produced as a market-wide product in a media environment where audience-specific, targeted content is thriving. Too few local television stations are utilizing the opportunities afforded by digital platforms to serve niche audiences in their marketplaces. And even the best of that content is often difficult to find on their websites, which are typically not user-friendly, or on their crowded social media streams, which pair breaking news with evergreen and more targeted content.
If local TV stations want to remain the vibrant sources of information they’ve been historically, they must avoid the two tropes that marked newspapers’ downfall: “Young people will age into consuming the news” (they won’t) and “Habits don’t change” (they do). Local TV stations should use today’s favorable revenue flows to actively invest in serving the diversity of the marketplaces in which they’re based, delivering thoughtfully targeted content to audiences through a multitude of social and digital channels.
Rachel Davis Mersey is associate dean of research and professor at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, [and] Integrated Marketing Communications.
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Richard J. Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
Ståle Grut OSINT journalism goes mainstream
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
Logan Jaffe You don’t need fancy tools to listen
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
james Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
L. Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Kourtney Bitterly Transparency isn’t just a desire, it’s an expectation
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Mario García Think small (screen)
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Joshua Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
An Xiao Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations