Is Local Television News Going the Way of SportsCenter?

This brings out my awful Kelly Ayotte joke from 2012.

While Mitt Romney was looking at VP picks for the nomination, someone said..

"How about Ayotte?"

To which Mitt replied, "A yacht? Yes! Let's get her!"

And that's the speculation for how Kelly Ayotte was on the shortlist. Hey-yoooo.

 

It would crush national TV news. Not local.
We are all car dealerships, furniture stores, local cancer centers and casinos. Some national insurance spots make it in.

 

As long as there are injury lawyers and bathtubs with doors, my show will be fine.

 

So what is the best local television market? Don't markets with lower educational levels generally have higher unemployment?

 

Lower education doesn't necessarily mean higher unemployment.

Manufacturing facilities. Unless it's the engineering wing, a lot of workers who don't have college degrees. They're employed. Not terribly mobile. Won't be moving anytime soon and are content with their split level house.

Why does this matter for TV news? They generally watch local TV for the news.

Here's why it matters for advertising. They buy $33,000 trucks - a high profit item for any dealership. For the professionals, the moms buy $33,000 SUVs - also high profit.

In these markets, you have high home ownership levels. So they buy furniture, decking, building materials, insurance. Their $55,000 a year at the plant is, generally, spent within 30 miles of where they live.

It's a different lifestyle than in huge markets or on the coast. People there may take mass transit so auto dealerships are a bicycle to a fish.

Renters generally don't care about a $2,000 furniture set, home improvement ads, etc. Their $75,000 in Big Market USA doesn't go to trucks and ottomans. It goes to global trips, fancy bistros where they post pictures of their food and taking week long trips to celebrate their 27th birthday in Punta Cana.

Just a different life.

The ideal TV news market has high home ownership, low public transit use and people who stay there their entire lives. It may not make for the culture opportunities for the coasts, but I've always eeked out a pretty good living.

For all of the bitching that Trump supporters do about fake news and media bias, the red states sure do watch TV news a lot.

Blue states and liberals under 45 generally don't. They're PBS/NPR types and tell anyone that they are.

Along with being vegan.

 

I am intrigued. Where do blacks and fit in this? What are the ideal real-life markets?

And I came up with a guess for the best market of the top forty that meets your criteria. The Spartanburg upcountry South Carolina market (I forget the other cities). Lots of manufacturing and not many blacks.

 

Exmedia's in the business, so I give his takes much cred, but how does that explain Boston? We have five local stations with at least five hours a day of news AND a 24-hour cable news channel. And we are as opposite from his market model as it's possible to be.

 

Milwaukee. Other "cold and old" markets like Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. Inexpensive living and lots of people there with no plans to move to West Palm Beach or Seattle.

Spartanburg also has Asheville, which has notoriously low local TV viewership levels. You get a call from that market for a job and the GM will always say "well, we are market 37 but we really pay like a market 70..."

Not a question of ethnicity as much as economic class and the cost of living. A good newsroom represents the population that it covers. Memphis, Jackson, Birmingham, Montgomery are fairly diverse but they'd also qualify as good TV markets. Lots of manufacturing (Hyundai in Montgomery, for example).

In the markets where Trump won, I just about guaran-damn-tee you they are solid local TV news markets.

As for Boston, there are enough eyeballs for seven or eight news operations. It's like an Italian election. The leader gets 17 percent (share) but because of volume they all make money. Still not an easy market because of high salaries and lots of overhead.

If you can do 60 minutes of morning news, you can do 150. Just add a producer and rerack the content. Add more water to the blueberry muffin batter...

If you want to see what a program or newscast thinks of you and who you are, watch the commercials.

If you see injury lawyers at 4 pm, that means the advertisers probably don't classify you as "high end". Hell, when I watch an MLS game, I feel like a success story with all of those hedge funds, snob beer and Audi signs.

 

One thing that has always surprised me is the relative lack of differentiation. I accept that if it bleeds it leads. But why doesn't one of the stations become overtly conservative to pitch to what sounds like an inherently conservative audience. Though I guess that may be where Sinclair is going.

 

Sinclair is about as cookie cutter as it gets -- at least for the older stations. They had recently bought some larger ones (before the Tribune purchase) - Seattle, Portland, Little Rock, WJLA in DC... good stations -- as have been wise not to mess with too many of them.

However, if you look at the roster from Market 60 to Market 212, they're almost all dog of the market. Mostly #3 with a few #2 stations sprinkled in. VERY different mindset from #1 stations.

 

TV news, in some markets - especially swing states - is remarkably healthy. I'll continue to insist it's in these types of markets and with number one stations.

The difference is that, 20 years ago, #4 stations in most markets still had money. Now they don't. To counter it, they add more news where they keep the cash.