As has been widely documented over the past year of living in a pandemic, consumers' media habits have largely morphed amid our homebound, screen-dependent lifestyles. Yet as many are quick to highlight the exploding streaming video market, Nielsen is uniquely positioned to highlight the constant importance of local news, as well as how that genre is attracting a wave of new viewers-Gen Z.
That was one of the key messages Nielsen leadership shared at the recent NATPE Miami virtual 2021 conference, appropriately themed A New Day for TV Stations.
It's no surprise that April, which coincided with the start of the pandemic, was the highest total TV and news viewing month of the year, which it typically is not, said Justin LaPorte, VP of Local Audience Insights, during his presentation. News still represents a much higher percentage of people's viewing day, and in November 2020, it was 10 percentage points higher in share of viewing than a year ago.
When looking at 18-24 year olds (Gen Z), he continued, viewing rose the most on January 6th (during the Capitol riots), with a 142% increase for cable viewing and almost 50% for broadcast. This group represents a new demo for news, and while it still has a smaller part of the share for total news viewing, it's a group that is watching more news on TV over the past year than we've seen previously.
Media consumption has changed dramatically over the past year, with local TV gaining prominence during a heated political season, cries for racial justice and the ongoing pandemic, as Catherine Herkovic, EVP and Managing Director, Nielsen Local TV, discussed during a panel focused on transforming learnings from the past year into strategies for engaging viewers in 2021.
Given the unusual times that we are living in, I find it logical that viewers want information that will help them to navigate day-to-day uncertainty, and they are turning to local news, which is a shining bright spot for TV, said Catherine. In fact, people watched over two billion more minutes of news in November 2020 than they did a year ago, and with over 43% of total viewing allocated to news, local news is by far the strongest genre within that.
Importantly, however, local stations can't focus on age groups alone when it comes to growth opportunities. They need to be focused on content choices and ensuring that they are including diverse audiences in their programming options.
Diversity, equity and inclusion aren't just a nice to have anymore; they're an imperative, said Court Stroud, panel moderator and Founder of the Cledor Group.
Nicolas Valls, General Manager, WGEN Estrella 8 Miami elaborated: Pandemic conditions are shifting the way we approach content and news in particular, to be more reassuring and educational, rather than just running the headlines that are going to increase ratings, and that's been driven by consumer and viewer preference. They're telling us what they want, and we're pivoting to their changing choices.
While general news viewing has gone up, Meredith McGinn, SVP of COZI TV, NBCLX, and LX.TV, affirmed that the younger generation is increasing their engagement with local TV.
The younger segment wants depth and context, noted Meredith. We know from the research we conducted that younger viewers consume news. We've seen double lift increases in that audience for our new network.
While the influence of the pandemic and the events of 2020 have brought significant positive changes to local TV viewership and younger audience engagement, how did COVID-19 play into the impact on streaming and storytelling in the future?
Nielsen's Sean Cohan, Chief Growth Officer & President, International, participated in a panel moderated by Jeff Cole, Director of the Center for the Digital Future, to discuss these topics.
We think about local TV as an ecosystem which includes audio and digital. What's interesting is that when you unpack advertising spend, growth is coming from small and medium size businesses which tend to gravitate to these local forms of reach, said Sean. I see growth in marketer interest and spend continuing. I think that there's a fuel for the fire if local can continue to attract more users and viewers, which is an underlying fundamental that is very healthy.
News had an extraordinary year in 2020, as did drama, niche drama and big events through streaming.
Acceleration, increased demand for streaming content and an insatiable viewership appetite with traditional TV and streaming, as well as new streaming and platform adoption, were undoubtedly popular trends last year. There was a dramatic acceleration that we thought may happen over several years that happened over several months due to the pandemic.
He continued, We've been focused on keeping our people safe and coming up with innovation around remote installs, management of panels, and working towards a single cross-media solution, Nielsen ONE. For us, audience is everything, and the common thread among all of our clients is the need for reliable unbiased data to make strategic decisions.
The social unrest of 2020 also called attention to the need for fairly representing viewership and helping the industry to be more representative, by putting diverse talent in front of and behind the camera.
2020 was about innovation, adaptation and not wasting a crisis, and the importance of information and leadership to help navigate chaos and change, Sean said.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
As has been widely documented over the past year of living in a pandemic, consumers' media habits have largely morphed amid our homebound, screen-dependent lifestyles. Yet as many are quick to highlight the exploding streaming video market, Nielsen is uniquely positioned to highlight the constant importance of local news, as well as how that genre is attracting a wave of new viewers-Gen Z.
