The other day we shared with you some results of the Knight Foundation’s new study on the how to future-proof local TV news.
This morning we attended a panel discussion on the topic at the NAB Show in Las Vegas.
“We wanted to understand what was going on,” explained Knight Foundation’s Karen Rundlet. The Knight Foundation has done plenty of study on the news business, but never this exhaustive of local TV news. The study found that local TV newsrooms now employ more people than local newspapers. It also revealed that revenue is up, and so are ratings, but only by an average of 18 percent over the last 9 years.
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It also studied the impact of social media. “Social does not cannibalize newscasts,” said Debora Wenger, Assistant Dean/Associate Professor
at The University of Mississippi and the study’s co-author. She found the most successful stations post to Facebook 25 times per day on average. “Human interest content and entertainment content was the bulk of the top performing posts,” said Wenger.
So, what should newsrooms be doing?
Mark Neerman, news director of KSNV, and regional news director for Sinclair, said the Baltimore-based company encouraged stations to find a single topic and throw resources at it. Neerman said KSNV pulled a reporter off the street and, starting in two weeks, will begin presenting a year-long series called Vegas Lost which looks at how young people are impacted by a rising crime rate in their demographic. “These were not mandated by corporate,” Neerman added, assuaging any question about Sinclair’s recent must-run mandates, including that “fake stories” promo.
“There’s a new monarchy here,” said Elizabeth Ozder, head of revenue at Content Management Platform LAKANA. “It used to be content is king, now the new king is your audience and their data.”