PART 1 — TV IS CRUMBLING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

‍

We hear a lot about the outside forces hurting local television.

Streaming. Cord-cutting. Fragmentation. Changing viewing habits.

All of that is real.

‍

But I think the bigger story may be what television is doing to itself.

‍

TV is crumbling more from the inside than the outside.

‍

Start with the people.

Newsrooms have cut experienced talent. Some are even going AI.

‍

Talent that was welcomed into viewers’ living rooms, trusted, branded, and part of the local community.

Those relationships took decades to build. Many of those people are now gone.

When I watch local news today, only one station in my market still has tenured talent I recognize.

‍

Cuts are not limited to on-air talent. Stations are cutting top management and moving to a regional management structure. Fewer people are overseeing more stations and more markets.

‍

On paper, eliminating a strong sales manager might save a station $200,000 or $250,000 a year.

‍

But what does it cost over time?

‍

Pricing decisions that leave money on the table. More discrepancies. Less training. Less accountability. Fewer people developing the next generation of great sellers.

Those losses will exceed the salary you eliminated.

‍

Sometimes short-term savings on a spreadsheet become long-term losses on the income statement. That can create a dangerous cycle: lower revenue leads to more cost cutting, more cost cutting weakens the product, and a weaker product makes it even harder to grow revenue.

‍

Stations can cut jobs quickly. Once those people are gone, I don't think what they brought to the station can be easily rebuilt. This is just my opinion, but one of my favorite sayings applies here: extinction is forever.

‍

Of course television needs to become more efficient. Every mature business does.

But there is a difference between eliminating inefficiency and eliminating value.

‍

At some point, cutting costs stops making the product more efficient and starts making the product less valuable.

And when the thing you're cutting is the very thing that made local television local, you have to ask:

‍

What exactly are broadcasters

‍