I just read a Cord Cutters News article about more local TV stations cutting back or eliminating local news.

Link to the article https://bit.ly/4yvYauw

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I didn’t research it beyond the article, so I’ll take it at face value.

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I didn’t live through stations cutting local news operations, but I did live through something similar.

I watched stations cut top talent who had spent years building relationships with viewers and their communities. They were replaced with lesser-known, lower-paid talent. I watched the ratings fall.

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This post isn’t about talent. It’s about something bigger:

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What makes a local television station local?

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I have always believed the strongest connection a station has to its community is its local news.

Weather. Breaking news. Local sports. Elections. Hurricanes. Community events. The people and stories that actually matter to the people who live there.

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Take that away, and what exactly is local about the local station?

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I have also always believed you can’t cut your way to long-term profitability when a business unit is already lean.
You can certainly make the numbers look better for a while. But there’s a point where cutting costs starts cutting the value of the product itself.

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That was one of the many reasons I left the broadcast business in 2018. I saw the future differently than my company did.

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Local television already has more competition for viewers than ever. Streaming has changed the landscape. Viewing habits have changed. The economics have changed.

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That makes this an interesting time to start removing one of the biggest competitive advantages local stations still have.

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Local.

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Maybe the economics leave some stations with very few choices. I understand that.

But if local stations continue cutting the very things that connect them to their communities, I don’t see that playing out well in the long run.

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You can cut expenses.

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You can cut people.

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You can cut programming.

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But eventually, you may be cutting the reason people watched you in the first place.

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And once that’s gone, what’s left to keep them coming back?

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Please add your commentary.

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