In 1994, KCCI, the station with the area’s most watched newscast, had nearly 138,000 people tuning in at 10 p.m. to get the news of the day. At 6 p.m., the station’s audience was 118,000 people.

Today, that audience has dropped more than 30,000 people at 10 p.m. and more than 20,000 at 6 p.m.

“It’s still a huge market, but the evening numbers are declining, no doubt about it,” said Dave Busiek, news director at KCCI.

At WHO-TV, the perennial number two in the market, the viewership drop has been worse.

An average of 71,000 watched the station’s 10 p.m. newscast every night in the fall of 2006, according to Nielsen Media research. In 1994, that number stood at 113,000. At 6 p.m., WHO was the area’s ratings leader in 1994 with 127,000 viewers. By last year, that number had dropped nearly in half to 69,000.

“People still love their news here in the Midwest,” said Rod Peterson, WHO news director. “But lifestyles are changing. We just have to make sure we change with them.”

Despite the optimistic outlook from the stations’ directors, it’s no secret that the audience for local television news is shrinking. Stations around the country are hemorrhaging viewers, and TV news executives are worried, with good reason. In the past five years, the number of Americans who say they regularly watch local television news has declined by more than 20 percent, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Why are more and more people tuning out? Is there anything that could turn the tide and make them tune back in?

If those questions sound almost desperate, it’s because the stakes are so high.

New kids on the block

There was a time when a TV newscast’s only competition was another station’s newscast. Now it’s not only cable and the Internet; it’s work schedules and traffic jams. The most common reason people give for not watching local TV news, according to a Pew survey, is that they just don’t have the time. They’re not home when the early evening news is broadcast, or they’re asleep when the late news comes on. Even if they’re near a TV set at news time, they say they’re just too busy to watch.

“We’re seeing a lot of growth in the early morning newscasts. They’re growing exponentially,” said Dave Busiek, KCCI news director.
Photo by Duane Tinkey

“It’s a national trend,” Busiek said. “When I started in this business, there was no satellite TV, cable networks weren’t what they are today, there was no Internet, it was just a whole different ballgame. It’s also a demographic trend; people are going to bed earlier.”

That has pushed many viewers to the morning shows, Busiek said.

“We’re seeing a lot of growth in the early morning newscasts,” he said. “They’re growing exponentially.”

Janet Keefer, an associate professor of journalism at Drake University, said she has definitely seen a shift for many viewers from the evening newscasts to the morning.

“You can see the morning shows have really beefed up their operations,” she said. “They are becoming more and more important to stations.”

Peterson said the Internet has had the biggest effect on local newscasts, and the Pew survey bears him out.

A decade ago, just one in 50 Americans got the news with some regularity from what was then a brand-new source – the Internet. Today, nearly one in three regularly get news online.

“People today want their news when they want their news,” Peterson said. “They aren’t willing to just wait until the 6 o’clock or 10 o’clock news. They want it now.”

Softening up

Technology also has changed the way the news is gathered.

“The constant news cycle has made it harder for a reporter to do more stories with more depth,” Keefer said. “When I was a reporter, many years ago, I went out with a camera person and got stories ready for two newscasts. Today, they have to have Web components, be prepared for five newscasts and in most cases are out there reporting a story on their own. The job of a reporter has changed.”

According to some research, TV journalists are being stretched thin.

“Local TV news emerged as the most thinly sourced and shallowly reported of any medium studied other than local radio,” said the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s 2006 State of the Media Report. This is blamed on the increased burden on reporters as their job expands to include extra newscasts and extra platforms to display their stories.

Keefer said those trends aren’t as prevalent in Iowa as they are in other parts of the country.

“Our local news actually does a pretty good job,” she said. “But the fear is still there that in order to catch younger viewers, the news is getting softer, or dumbed down, since reporters don’t have the time to invest in stories like they used to. Content has shifted from city council meetings to new ways to get your child to eat their lunch.”

Attracting that younger viewer, who is more likely than previous generations to seek out news from the Internet, has become increasingly difficult. In the November ratings period, KCCI’s share of the audience ages 25 to 54, a key market for advertisers, fell 26 percent. WHO’s fell 3 percent.

Busiek disagrees with the assertion that local TV news is softer today. In fact, he said, local stations are doing more meaningful pieces today than at any time in his 28 years with KCCI.

“We used to do a story at the state legislature every day, regardless of whether anything happened or not,” he said. “Now, instead we go out into the community and find the people affected by legislation and talk to them. It’s our job in television to tell a good story and make it meaningful to our viewers.”

Peterson agrees.

“I think local television is the best source of local news out there,” he said. “We have dedicated ourselves to becoming more relevant and reporting the stories that affect people’s lives.”

Bullish market

Allen Sandubrae, vice president of news for Citadel Communications Co., which owns ABC5, said he doesn’t agree with the premise that local stations are losing viewers.

“We just had two weeks of severe winter weather,” he said. “When the ratings come out, I guarantee the number of viewers is going to be very high. You see a lot of ups and downs, but I’m not at all concerned with our core audience and core demographic.”

In this market, Nielsen ratings are based on a diary method, where viewers keep a journal of what they’ve watched, as opposed to a metered method, where stations are given daily updates on viewing patterns electronically.

“If we were a metered market, I don’t think the patterns would be the same,” he said. “In fact, I’m absolutely positive viewership would be up.”

Sandubrae said stations’ news departments are discovering new venues for their product, with services like video on demand, interactive Web sites and instant messaging changing the way news is reported. But the main product is still the newscasts, he said, and he has no fear that they may one day go away.

“Local TV news can’t be replaced,” he said. “It can be supported or augmented by other media, but it can’t be replaced.”

Despite the downturn in viewers, TV stations are still enormously profitable. Pre-tax profit margins of 40 percent and even 50 percent are not uncommon, according to Pew research. And with a presidential election around the corner, with a huge field of candidates, local stations can expect huge increases in revenue from political advertising, Sandubrae said.

“There will always be a market for the local newscast,” KCCI’s Busiek said. “I’m very bullish on the future of our business.”

Despite its challenges, Busiek said the new competition from other types of media is good for the industry.

“I like the information age,” he said. “With the Web, there aren’t deadlines anymore. People want information however they want it, and they want it constantly updated.”

Local TV news faces a complex future. But those in the industry agree that there will always be a place for local newscasts.

Even though viewership is down, Pew research found that 79 percent of Americans said they had a favorable opinion of local TV news. Overall, Americans thought local news was the most factual of all the media. A full 61 percent of Americans found that it “mostly reports the facts about news events.” That compares favorably with the 53 percent who considered network news mostly factual, and 45 percent who thought so about cable.

“Our reporters have deep roots in the community,” Busiek said. “They have established a basis of trust, and that’s why people turn to us for their news.”