Lets face it: Local TV took a bit of a beating during the wild ride of 2016. Now that the year has come to a close, the industry in 2017 will confront a breadth of institutional challenges, as well as some serious soul-searching.
The media faces a confrontational climate like it has never seen before in recent times, says Mike Cavender, RTDNA/F executive director, who puts navigating the Trump presidency and restoring public confidence in the media at the top of broadcasters' 2017 priorities. Public opinion polls regarding our trustworthiness continue to go the wrong way-something that further impacts our believability with too much of our audience.
Station groups and their assets will change in 2017, a year which should, at long last, see both the Nexstar-Media General merger and results of the broadcast spectrum auction, both of which could bode well for participants.
But when you toss in some of the other challenges on tap for the larger industry, such as the encroachment and sway of social media, it looks like 2017 could be another rough one, with lots of navigating to do. Here's a look at the major issues facing local TV:
The Trump Presidency-and the Freedom' of Information
Although the candidate Donald Trump did battle with national news organizations, the negative ramifications of having a president who is openly critical of the media (and who well may circumvent it) could trickle down to local broadcast news outlets. Not only could local authorities follow Trump's lead, creating an adversarial relationship between local TV news operations and the people they cover, but his denunciation of the media has already eroded public trust.
The campaign gave rise to fake news, and consumers' growing penchant for getting their news from a range of sources, whether they're qualified to provide it or not. If the new administration enacts changes it has touted-reducing health care coverage and cracking down on immigration among them-there will be an enormous impact on communities, and the way local TV covers them.
In 2017, local broadcasters will also continue other battles with the government, most notably over their right to access public information, such as police body camera video. Advocates say it should be treated no differently than public records.
Dependence on Facebook
For all the energy local broadcasters have put into leveraging social media, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter still threaten the vitality of the industry. Recognize that Facebook is a competitor, says Steve Schwaid, VP of digital strategies at media research company CJ&N.
Local broadcasters' growing propensity for pushing stories and live broadcasts over Facebook's platform could come back to bite them in 2017 if they don't swap it out for teasers and clips that drive viewers back to their own sites. It only helps increase Facebook dependence, Schwaid said.
Also in 2017, local broadcast news operations have to end the enticing habit of letting social media sway what they cover. Monitoring social media trending for what resonates is important, and those stories should be leveraged on-air or online. But, as 2016 showed, it's incumbent on newsrooms to spend the time and resources to understanding viewers and report the kind of news they want to consume. Spending cash on research could pay off.
Having the Right-and Best-Staff
In keeping with off-year tradition, there won't be much political or Olympics money being pumped into local TV in 2017, meaning those budgets may again be tightened, calling staffing into question. Between the major cuts starting in 2008, and the elimination of industry vets through buyouts, there already is a dearth of institutional knowledge in local TV newsrooms. Further erosion of newsroom staff will only hurt the product, too. It all increases the danger of having too few news people holding officials accountable.
At the same time, though, it will become increasingly important in the year ahead to have newsrooms that are up for creating content that resonates across platforms. As putting more muscle into content creation rises, newsrooms will be faced with hard choices-such as, say, reducing the number of news managers to hire more digital content creators.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
Lets face it: Local TV took a bit of a beating during the wild ride of 2016. Now that the year has come to a close, the industry in 2017 will confront a breadth of institutional challenges, as well as some serious soul-searching.
