
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 ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
24/08/2026
Co-authors Mike Soltys and Garrett Sutton reflect on Rasmussen's vision, intentional optimism,' and fan-first philosophy following his death last week...
24/08/2026
Human-played drum fills on demand
Sample library developers Yurt Rock have announced the launch of a new plug-in that's dedicated to creating drum fill...
24/08/2026
Debut plug-in in new Professional Series
Black Rooster Audio's latest plug-in delivers an all-in-one vocal-processing tool, and is the debut release in ...
24/08/2026
SBS WorldWatch embraces digital future with move to SBS On Demand
24 August, 2026
Media releases
On 18 September, SBS WorldWatch will transition from a lin...
24/08/2026
Rohde & Schwarz addresses operational efficiency and infrastructure resilience a...
24/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
24/08/2026
As the broadcast industry moves toward more flexible production platforms, Calrec will present its evolving audio ecosystem at IBC 2026, on Stand 8.C47. The dem...
24/08/2026
Stop Using Boring Static Highlights - Pro After Effects Workflow
Graham Quince August 24, 2026
0 Comments
Did you know you can use After Effects expre...
24/08/2026
Paledusk Performance Captured with URSA Cine Immersive
Brie Clayton August 24, 2026
0 Comments
Creative production company THINGS. brings the band'...
24/08/2026
The Handel Scandal and Dangerous Debussy will both air on Sky Arts this AutumnMo...
24/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, w...
24/08/2026
Arvato Systems Becomes a Service Partner of HANDELSVERBAND.swiss
Zurich - Arvato Systems Switzerland has been a service partner of HANDELSVERBAND.swiss since ...
24/08/2026
According to OpenRouter data, agentic AI workloads consume 15x more tokens than ...
24/08/2026
The next era of AI inference won't be defined by a single breakthrough chip,...
24/08/2026
To generate intelligence at scale, AI factories run continuously, and their economics are defined by delivered output: tokens per second, tokens per watt, cost ...
24/08/2026
We Only Want the Earth: The Life & Ideas of James Connolly airs
Wednesday 26 August on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
RT is to air the compelling documenta...
23/08/2026
Offers up to 10 bands of compression
Parish Audio's latest release allows users to place individual compressors anywhere in the frequency range, but tak...
22/08/2026
O'Shea Jackson Jr., Dave Franco, and Mason Thames appear in Idiots by Macon Blair, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of ...
22/08/2026
By the time Hacks reached its fifth and final season, Adam Bricker ASC had spent six years shaping one of television's most distinctive visual identities. T...
22/08/2026
Polsat reclaims second place, ByteDance climbs to eighth, and live football miti...
22/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/08/2026
Avid brings agentic media production to IBC2026
Brie Clayton August 21, 2026
0 Comments
After launching Avid Content Core at NAB 2026, Avid expands it...
22/08/2026
Making of Lord of the Flies Shot with Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro
Brie Clayton August 21, 2026
0 Comments
Filmmaker Lisa Marie Russo shoots on the bea...
22/08/2026
Homecoming Artist Spotlight: Dogs in a Pile The rising jam band talks about where it all started on the Berklee campus ahead of their Homecoming performance o...
22/08/2026
Berklee Alumna Lexi Vollero MA '22 Receives Fulbright Award to Brazil Vollero, a Berklee NYC graduate, has been selected for a Fulbright Open Research Awa...
21/08/2026
A massive deployment of specialty cameras, graphics, and AR will showcase the na...
21/08/2026
The West Coast Conference unveiled its new 30-second public service announcement, the latest expression of the Conference's We Rise in the West brand iden...
21/08/2026
New look will serve as the foundation for ESPN's upcoming NFL season and Sup...
21/08/2026
ESPN will air the ninth annual MLB Little League Classic presented by New York Life on Sunday, August 23, at 7 p.m. ET from Historic Bowman Field in Williamspor...
21/08/2026
In an emotional acceptance speech in Canton, Grossman celebrated the pioneering ...
21/08/2026
Hardware-style timing shifts for software instruments
Following on from the release of Omniclock, Rapid Flow have launched a new sequencer plug-in that can ...
21/08/2026
Highly anticipated synthesizer ships in October 2026
Iceland-based Love Synthesizers have announced that their highly anticipated synthesizer is now availab...
21/08/2026
Masterpiece PBS The Forsytes has expanded its cast as its begins production in ...
21/08/2026
The BBC has unveiled first-look pictures from The Witch Farm, a new ghost story and mystery set in the Welsh countryside, coming soon to BBC iPlayer and BBC One...
21/08/2026
The BBC and BritBox have revealed the first look of Edward Bluemel as Hercule Poirot in the forthcoming six-part series Hercule from Mammoth Screen and Agatha C...
21/08/2026
Our priority was making the best, most powerful, most meaningful story possible,...
21/08/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Avid will unveil how it is transforming production to help media organizations unite content, agentic workflows, and business insights at IBC2026 (RAI Amsterda...
21/08/2026
New routing, modular processing, orchestration and monitoring capabilities bridge dedicated hardware and software-based processing as part of the Dynamic Media ...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...