It's a perpetual frustration in the PR field: You have a juicy story you want to pitch to the local (network) affiliates on, say, a new business trend or cultural issue, but
producers are too preoccupied with blood, guts and the bizarre. That's one conclusion from an aggregate of several surveys on local TV news that was put together for PR NEWS by
broadcast PR firm Medialink.
Although the world has gotten a lot more complicated in the last four years, local stations have doggedly kept to their mantra of, "if it bleeds, it leads." But the
compulsion among local news stations for crime has come with a cost. In the last several years, most of the local TV stations (in the nation's 210 TV markets) have been losing
their audiences, according to Nielsen Media Research. That'll most likely continue unless the locals start to cater their coverage to include more human interest/business/social
issues/cultural stories in their broadcasts - topics that PR execs can work with. "When pitching a national news story, take time to research local angles to make the story more
relevant to the community; for example, a news story on national educational testing may tie in to local school board issues, teacher salaries or budget controversy," said Lidj
Lewis, VP of Media Relations, Medialink.
| Percent of Local TV News Project Stations Losing Audience, 1998-2002; Viewership of local news has begun to decline | |
| Year | Percent of Stations Losing Audience |
| 1998 | 82.0% |
| 1999 | 78.0 |
| 2000 | 88.5 |
| 2001 | 72.1 |
| 2002 | 84.9 |
| Source: PEJ analysis of Nielsen Media Research data (State of the News Media 2004); *750 stations in 210 television markets |
|
| Topic Coverage of Local TV News Stories | |
| Topic | % of Stories |
| Crime/trials | 24% |
| Accidents/bizarre events/disasters | 12 |
| Politics/government | 10 |
| Human interest | 10 |
| Social issues | 8 |
| Business/economy | 7 |
| Culture/civilization | 7 |
| Health/consumer | 6 |
| Miscellaneous | 6 |
| Foreign affairs/defense | 5 |
| Science/technology | 4 |
| Source: PEJ Local TV News Project. (State of the News Media 2004); Weather and sports coverage not counted towards total. Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding |
|
| Reasons Given for Not Watching Local TV News; There are changes in the way people live, but there are also plenty of complaints about the type of news covered. |
|
| Reason Given | Percentage (More than one answer accepted) |
| You are not home when the news comes on | 38.6% |
| You are asleep when the late news comes on | 36.6 |
| You get local news elsewhere | 35.2 |
| You are too busy to watch when home | 34.4 |
| There is too much crime on local TV news | 32.0 |
| You are watching something else when the news is on | 27.0 |
| Local news is always the same stuff | 25.0 |
| There are too many fluff stories | 24.6 |
| Source: NewsLab (State of the News Media 2004) | |