Faced With Unprofitability In ’25, Station Groups Must Pivot Now
Some local station groups must lean into creativity, experimentation and the prospect of divorcing their networks if they’re to survive an ominous 2025.
Why TVNewsCheck Matters
TVNewsCheck’s daily newsletters and original stories are essential reading for our industry. It’s absence from our inboxes is already keenly felt, so let’s help bring it back.
Byron Allen Is A True Believer
The syndicator, station owner, cable network empresario, force of nature has gotten some attention from Shari Redstone with his $30 billion offer for her Paramount Global. He’s got a lot going for him because Allen believes in the future of our business. Virtually every investment he has made, every deal he has reached for, has been about his belief in linear television.
Why Your Best Young TV Journalist Just Left
Some of local TV’s brightest and most ambitious talents are leaving beloved jobs — and the industry — behind facing salary prospects that fall far too much below an acceptable mark.
FCC Gives Broadcasters A Lump Of Coal For The New Year
Entrenched in the past, the commission has held firm — and even tightened — its deeply out-of-date regulations, dealing a deep blow to broadcasters.
The Broadcasters Foundation Deserves Your Support
The foundation has helped many a broadcast employee through hard times. It can use every bit of possible support to keep seeing that mission through.
FAST channels are streaming’s shiny new object, but in reality, TV stations have been in the FAST business for a very long time. Now, as then, the quality of content makes all the difference.
TV News Confronts Its Motivation Problem
Creativity, fresh thinking and energy left TV news years ago, driven out by the factory model the industry leaned into after the recession. But the current burnout crisis offers smart broadcasters a chance to recapture the spark.
CNN Throws In The Towel
In replacing Chris Licht with Mark Thompson, David Zaslav lost an opportunity to move the channel back towards straight news. The loss of reasoned debate among people who disagree, yet still respect each other, is the great tragedy of the 21st century. CNN had a chance to build a small bridge over that chasm of partisanship, but the opportunity now seems to be gone.
Is ABC Really For Sale?
A tipping point for the broadcast industry is coming, and part of it hinges on a problem that Disney chief Bob Iger created for himself.
Kansas Newspaper Raid Outrage Offers Warning To TV News
TV stations should view last week’s raid on the Marion County Kansas Record by local police and sheriff’s deputies as a warning shot. Every newsroom should have a plan to deal with potential search warrants with the station’s attorneys squarely on board.
AI And The Future Of Local TV News
With its seemingly boundless applications for news, AI is likely to deepen the divide between best-in-class and worst-in-class station owners. The better ones will recognize its capacity to augment and expand their reporting capacities.
Local News Burns Out
A recent study from RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University lays bare just how overwhelmed TV newsroom personnel have become. The bucks stops at the corporate level for this problem, and the C-suite is running out of time to address it.
The closing of five news departments at Sinclair stations across the country may just be an effect of one company’s regional sports network gone sideways. It may also signal that a major local TV news shakeup is finally upon us.