And the surest way to lose lead-in audience is to trick up newscasts with easy gimmicks eye candy, ratings stunts and hype. The best way to build or keep audience is to cover a broader range of issues and topics. Stations that cover less of the community, or aim newscasts at specific audiences, are the most likely to be losing ratings.
Local news seems to be moving in the wrong direction.
In particular it is getting thinner. The amount of enterprise, already shrinking, is withering to almost nothing. The majority of stories studied this year were either feeds or footage aired without an on-scene reporter. Local TV ignores whole sectors of society. The poor have all but disappeared.