TV News 2013: Busy Year For Local, Networks

The local TV news business is wrapping up 2013 in a relatively good place following a year that raised questions about consolidations, saw the growth in newscasts reaching new audiences and saw local broadcasters lead coverage of national tragedies.

A couple of the biggest tests to local news operations’ capabilities occurred in the first half of the year.

In April, Boston’s TV stations switched from celebration to terror coverage after the detonation of two bombs during the Boston Marathon.

 The following month, TV stations once again contended with the all too familiar challenge of covering a disaster when a deadly tornado touched down south of Oklahoma City.

The Boston coverage in particular showcased the increasingly important role affiliates play in covering breaking news. In 2013, we saw networks increasingly looking to affiliates to help cover breaking news stories, providing on-the-ground coverage and local expertise. And the stations benefit from network tech resources as well as reporting that includes national and federal news sources.

At the same time, though, we saw covering those kinds of stories taking a toll on reporters. The issues journalists confront in covering traumatic events like the Marathon bombings are increasing is due to both changes in the news business and because there are simply so many more of them.

The industry also wrestled with issues of its own in 2013.

The June announcement that Gannett would be acquiring Belo raised questions about how local news would be affected by the merger. The news was of particular concern in cities like St. Louis and Phoenix where both companies own TV stations.

Stations also continued to carefully wend their way through the minefield of new and social media dos and don’ts.

With no industrywide standards yet established, they must determine how to oversee what employees — especially high-profile on-air personalities — post; whether they should be using station or personal accounts; and who owns such accounts and their growing legions of followers.

After NASCAR’s March attempt to block videos of a crash before the Daytona 500 shot by spectators in the stands, questions were raised once again of whether news organizations risk legal problems when airing user-generated video.

As pressure grew to keep up with websites and social media, broadcasters had to reaffirm the need for reporters to diligently verify and vet information to avoid local news having a credibility crisis.

Hispanic audiences fueled much of the growth in local TV news that occurred in 2013.  Launching new Spanish-language newscasts around the country, broadcasters expanded news offerings targeting Latino viewers to keep up with that audience’s growth in numbers and strength.

Telemundo’s WWSI Philadelphia built an entire newsroom from scratch to meet the growing demand.

This year also saw local newspeople making the leap to cable television with the launch of two new news network: Fusion, the cable network from ABC and Univision targeting millennials, and Al Jazeera America.

Fox-owned WWOR New York was one of the few broadcasters who tried something new in news in 2013. In July, the station replaced its traditional 10 p.m. news with Chasing New Jersey, which tried to reach younger viewers through a hipper approach to the broadcast.

Network News

The year ended as the last two began, with NBC the leader in the broadcast network news ratings. The Brian Williams broadcast was No. 1, followed by ABC and CBS.

While two of the three evening newscasts grew their total viewer audience over the last year, all three broadcasts continued to see erosion in the A25-54 news demo. For the 17th straight year, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams was the most-watched evening newscast in the 2012-13 season. The broadcast was down 2% in total viewers and down 5% in the demo compared to the 2011-12 season.

ABC World News with Diane Sawyer was up 2% in viewers and was down less than 1% in the demo. This is the closest No. 2 World News has been to Nightly News since the 2007-08 season.

For the third year in a row — and the only broadcast to do so — No. 3 CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley grew its total viewer audience by 7%. The show is up 10% from the 2010-11 season.

But like NBC and ABC, CBS was also down in the demo — by 2%. The three evening newscasts drew a combined 5.93 million viewers last season, down from 6.5 million in the 2010-11 season.

The big stories that had the news departments scrambling or sent network anchors out of their New York studios included coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, the shootings at the Navy Yard in Washington, the Capitol Hill shooting, the debut of Britain’s royal baby, the death of Nelson Mandela and looks back at the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

NBC was in the news itself throughout 2013, often for news of new initiatives it was announcing. In August Deborah Turness, former editor of ITV News in Britain, took over the reins of the network’s news division. She replaced Steve Capus, who resigned earlier in the year. His influence at the news division was curtailed the year before when NBC parent Comcast Corp., appointed Pat Fili-Krushel to oversee news operations that in addition to NBC News also include cable networks CNBC and MSNBC.

Turness wasted little time making her presence felt. Today debuted a high-tech set on Sept. 16. Speaking a few days before, Turness made it clear the changes were more than cosmetic: Today is more aggressively seeking newsmaker interviews and is minimizing lurid crime stories and some of the fluff in favor of more uplifting stories.

In November she named Julian March SVP of editorial and innovation, saying he will have responsibility for all digital businesses, including NBCNews.com, as well as the news division’s editorial units. He had worked with Turness at ITV as director of online.

Then later in November, she hired another former colleague from ITV, Bill Neely, to be the network’s chief global correspondent, based in London.

On the down side, NBC gave up the ghost on its news magazine Rock Center with Brian Williams, announcing its cancellation in May. Introduced in 2011, the show struggled in the ratings since its premiere and wasn’t helped by several moves on the NBC schedule.

As the year drew to a close, CBS News found itself making news when questions arose about the validity of one of Lara Logan’s sources in a 60 Minutes story on the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. Logan admitted making a mistake and apologized on air, but was placed on indefinite leave along with the piece’s producer Max McClellan. Even former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather weighed in, saying he didn’t think Logan should be fired as he was.

Also at CBS, Byron Pitts left after 15 years to join ABC News, Dan Abrams was named Nightline anchor and Barbara Walters announced in March that she would retire in 2014 after 50-plus years in journalism. In December, Sam Champion left the weather desk of ABC’s Good Morning America to join the Weather Channel. And also in December, Katie Couric decided to leave ABC News for a show on Yahoo.

Over on the noncommercial side, in August PBS NewsHour named Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff co-anchors and co-managing editors of the weeknight broadcast, the first women co-anchors of a national daily TV news program.

This is Part I of our five-part 2013 Year In Review special report. Read the other parts here.