MORE FACT SHEETS: STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA

While television remains the most common place for Americans to get their news, with local TV outpacing cable and network TV, local TV news saw its audience decline across all time slots studied this past year. Financially, local TV companies generated more revenue in 2018 than in 2017, consistent with a cyclical pattern in which revenue rises in election years and falls in non-election years. Explore the patterns and longitudinal data about local TV news below.

Audience

In 2018, viewership for network local affiliate news stations (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) declined in key time slots – morning (6 a.m. to 9 a.m.), evening (4 p.m. to 7 p.m.) and late night (11 p.m. to 2 a.m.) – according to Comscore StationView Essentials® data. The average audience (defined as the average number of TVs tuned to a program throughout a time period) for the morning news time slot decreased 10% in 2018. Local TV average audience for the late night and evening news time slots also declined (14% for both). Audience for the midday news (11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and prime news (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.) time slots both declined 19%.

Previous versions of this fact sheet included audience data stretching back to 2007. That data is available in the 2017 archived fact sheet.

Average audience for local TV news

Key time slots

Midday and prime

Year Morning news Evening news Late night news 2016 2,885,533 4,104,769 4,206,819 2017 2,512,654 3,875,882 3,987,588 2018 2,261,440 3,320,031 3,413,721 Pew Research Center

Year Prime news Midday news 2016 3,863,224 2,481,616 2017 3,813,822 2,385,257 2018 3,084,067 1,922,708 Pew Research Center

Economics

Local TV station revenue typically follows a cyclical pattern: It increases in election years and decreases in non-election years. In 2018, an election year, local TV over-the-air advertising revenue totaled $19.3 billion, a 12% increase over 2017, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of MEDIA Access Pro & BIA Advisory Services data. In comparison, local TV advertising revenue in the two most recent election years was $19.8 billion (2016) and $19.3 billion (2014).

Total digital advertising revenue for local TV stations increased 14% in 2018 (reaching a total of about $1.2 billion). Digital advertising revenue accounts for less than 10% of total ad revenue.

Advertising revenue for 829 local TV stations defined as “news-producing stations” (i.e., stations that have a news director and are viable, commercial and English-language affiliates in the U.S.) was $15.8 billion, 82% of the total $19.3 billion revenue for the local TV industry overall, according to the BIA Advisory Services database.

Advertising revenue for local TV Year Digital Over-the-air 2004 $22,400,000,000 2005 $21,000,000,000 2006 $22,800,000,000 2007 $21,542,700,000 2008 $20,621,200,000 2009 $15,768,500,000 2010 $400,000,000 $18,661,700,000 2011 $534,750,000 $17,159,700,000 2012 $625,870,000 $19,517,400,000 2013 $695,790,000 $17,720,300,000 2014 $819,840,000 $19,300,100,000 2015 $911,290,000 $17,803,800,000 2016 $1,005,660,000 $19,821,600,000 2017 $1,035,140,000 $17,207,100,000 2018 $1,181,850,000 $19,270,300,000 2019* $1,344,670,000 $17,229,300,000 2020* $1,509,130,000 $18,729,700,000 2021* $1,679,900,000 $17,327,900,000 2022* $1,859,310,000 $18,397,800,000 2023* $2,049,830,000 $17,553,100,000 Pew Research Center

Revenue from retransmission fees – the fees paid by cable and satellite systems to carry local channels – has been increasing rapidly in the past decade, according to estimates from Kagan, a media research group in S&P Global Market Intelligence. In 2018, retransmission revenue reached almost $10.2 billion, up from $9.4 billion in 2017; Kagan projects that this figure will reach $12.2 billion by 2023.

Retransmission fee revenue for U.S. local TV stations Year Revenue 2006 $215,000,000 2007 $314,000,000 2008 $502,000,000 2009 $762,000,000 2010 $1,246,000,000 2011 $1,776,000,000 2012 $2,408,000,000 2013 $3,620,000,000 2014 $4,857,000,000 2015 $6,423,000,000 2016 $7,979,000,000 2017 $9,374,000,000 2018 $10,173,000,000 2019* $10,768,000,000 2020* $11,249,000,000 2021* $11,586,000,000 2022* $11,888,000,000 2023* $12,161,000,000 Pew Research Center

Six major publicly held local TV station companies – Tribune, Nexstar, Sinclair, Tegna, Gray and Scripps – report political advertising revenue separately from other types of revenues in their Securities and Exchange Commission filings. In 2018, the six companies reported a total of $1.2 billion in political advertising revenue, compared with $843 million in 2016 and $696 million in 2014, the two most recent election years. (Data points for 2012 to 2016 also include Media General, which was purchased by Nexstar in 2017.)

Political advertising revenue at local TV companies Year Revenue 2012 $573,591,000 2013 $49,880,000 2014 $696,482,000 2015 $124,451,000 2016 $842,737,000 2017 $111,612,000 2018 $1,202,996,000 Pew Research Center

Newsroom investment

Roughly 29,000 employees worked as reporters, editors, photographers or film and video editors in broadcast TV newsrooms in 2018, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics. Median wages for editors in 2018 were about $57,000, while for reporters the figure was about $55,000. For film and video editors and camera operators, the median wage was about $50,000. Photographers had a median wage of about $46,000. (Broadcast TV newsroom employment and wage data includes both national and local TV broadcasters. For details, see the methodology.)

Employment in broadcast TV newsrooms

Employment

Wages

Year Total 2004 29,630 2005 28,550 2006 28,360 2007 27,600 2008 28,390 2009 28,040 2010 28,640 2011 28,050 2012 27,830 2013 25,650 2014 26,300 2015 28,430 2016 28,190 2017 28,900 2018 28,670 Pew Research Center

Year News analysts, reporters

and correspondents Editors Photographers Camera operators and

film and video editors 2012 $48,978 $53,043 $42,765 $40,388 2013 $47,863 $51,988 $41,191 $37,898 2014 $47,619 $52,927 $41,620 $44,019 2015 $50,960 $51,808 $43,085 2016 $51,274 $53,785 $46,649 2017 $52,561 $55,521 $46,671 2018 $54,610 $57,300 $45,650 $50,040 Pew Research Center

The average amount of weekday local TV news programming was increased slightly in 2018, according to the RTDNA/Hofstra University survey. Local TV stations dedicated an average of 5.9 hours to news programming per weekday in 2018, up slightly from 5.6 hours in 2017.

Number of hours dedicated to local TV news Year Hours 2003 3.7 2004 3.6 2005 3.8 2006 4.1 2007 4.1 2008 4.6 2009 5.0 2010 5.3 2011 5.5 2012 5.4 2013 5.3 2014 5.3 2015 5.5 2016 5.7 2017 5.6 2018 5.9 Pew Research Center

Ownership

In 2018, 144 local TV stations changed hands at a cost of $8.8 billion, as annually reported by BIA Advisory Services. This is up from $4.7 billion across 107 stations that experienced changes in ownership in 2017.)

Mergers and acquisitions of local TV stations Year Revenue 2000 $8,800,000,000 2001 $4,900,000,000 2002 $2,529,000,000 2003 $520,000,000 2004 $872,000,000 2005 $2,842,000,000 2006 $18,127,000,000 2007 $2,899,000,000 2008 $537,000,000 2009 $714,000,000 2010 $199,000,000 2011 $1,102,000,000 2012 $1,891,000,000 2013 $9,712,000,000 2014 $4,616,000,000 2015 $670,000,000 2016 $5,280,000,000 2017 $4,684,000,000 2018 $8,800,000,000 Pew Research Center

Find out more

This fact sheet was compiled by Associate Director Katerina Eva Matsa and Sophia Fedeli, who was a Research Assistant at Pew Research Center in 2018 and 2019.

Read the methodology.

Find more in-depth explorations of local TV news by following the links below: