Inescapable technology changes and a migrating audience have local broadcast news in trouble - Poynter

Audience viewing is migrating from traditional broadcast to streaming apps, eroding revenue from political advertising and retransmission fees. Stations face urgent need to reconfigure programming and business models. WANF Atlanta dropped CBS to reclaim morning hours, shifting toward immediacy and app-friendly formats. Many stations remain tethered to traditional segment structures and repetitive weather loops. Chains like Tegna are launching streaming versions in morning slots while maintaining network programming for cable and over-the-air viewers. The shift accelerates in 2025, forcing decisions on timing and strategy for survival. Decisions about when and how to respond become critical as traditional revenue lines stagnate.

The scenario is familiar to any journalist who has worked at a newspaper in the last 15 years. The audience is moving away from the profitable old platform to a hot, new one. The outlet must adapt or at least try to. Now the dynamic is roiling regional broadcast outlets with their bread-and-butter content: local newscasts. Revenue from a very successful business model has stalled as the viewing action moves to streaming apps.

The challenge has been brewing for a while but is picking up pace fast in 2025. Political advertising is no longer growing, and retransmission fees (what cable companies pay to carry the stations) are in peril. When and how to respond? It's some of what you might expect if you accept the print-to-digital analogy, but also with some twists. I spoke with Erik Schrader, vice president and general manager of WANF Atlanta.

Just this month, the station dropped its longtime affiliation with CBS, largely to reclaim the prime morning news hours for itself instead of handing them over to a network show. Playing in a new time slot, WANF has made a subtle shift to a format with less of a traditional structure and more "immediacy," Schrader said. Viewers can see in on the traditional cable and over-the-air formats but, of course, it's also built as an app easily used on smartphones.

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