The recession may be bottoming out, but local TV stations aren’t seeing much evidence of an economic recovery. The latest reports from several ownership groups are downright depressing.
Operating income for the Fox owned-and-operated TV stations dropped 67 percent in the quarter ending June 30, compared to the previous year, according to TVB.
LIN television stations saw their income decline by 20 percent and Fisher stations‘ income was down 26 percent year-to-year, “showingthe effects of an off-election year, in addition to the industry-wide slump in advertising.” The numbers are in line with BIA’s gloomy projections for the industry as a whole.
Online revenues are up, of course, but not enough to close the gap. So what’s the business model that will keep local TV news viable?
How about a combination of advertising and paid content? NewsCorp’s Rupert Murdoch believes the argument that no one will pay for online news isn’t just wrong-headed, it’s false. Editor & Publisher reports Murdoch plans to charge for access to all of the company’s Web sites, including Fox News:
Murdoch said the circulation gains in print and online at the [Wall Street] Journal prove the business model of paid content. “Quality journalism is not cheap and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting,” he said.
Here’s another possible money-maker: Stations could deliver live local TV news to hand-held devices. Yes, there’s an app for that. Al Jazeera English already delivers newscasts to iPhones in the United States. In Europe, iPhone users can watch live news from the BBC. ReadWriteWeb reports that the company behind these apps, Livestation, says local TV stations could easily build their own.
They can then also serve ads within the app itself, if the broadcaster so chooses. Those ads don’t have to be simple text or image links, either – they can be video ads, too, much like what you would see on TV.
It’s pretty clear that mobile TV is the next frontier for local news. What’s not so certain is whether it will pay enough to make up for the losses stations are dealing with now.
