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Essay
Audience
The news about local news audiences may be looking up.
After declines for most of the last decade, there were tentative
signs in 2004 and heading into 2005 that the audience slide
for newscasts in the two major time slots, evening and late
news, may be slowing. At the same time, audiences for early
morning news are growing.
Why the changes are occurring, and whether they are a temporary
shift driven by news events like the presidential election
or the war in Iraq, is harder to determine.
Understanding audience levels for local news is a little
complicated. Data are collected and analyzed within each market,
rather than nationally. There is no overall figure on local
news ratings that is commonly published, as there is, say,
for the ratings of the CBS Evening News With Dan Rather. This
makes it difficult for station managers or analysts to get
an overall sense of audience and pinpoint national trends.
To get some sense of overall local news audience, the Project
took yearly audience data for 529 different stations collected
by the investment services company BIA Financial Network (BIAfn).
We then calculated national audience averages for both early-evening
and late-night local news programs, going back to 1997.
After significant declines through 2003, the data for those
key newscasts in 2004
show signs of stabilization.
For those unfamiliar with the TV industry, there are two
basic measures of audience - share and ratings. Ratings show
the percentage of all television sets in the market tuned
to a given program (including those in use and those that
are turned off). Share tells us the percentage of television
sets in use at a given time that are tuned to each program
- or something akin to market share. Stations use ratings
to set prices for advertisers; share allows stations to see
how they're performing relative to the available competition.
Looking first at share, between May 1997 and May 2003, early-evening
news programs lost 16% of their available audience share -
or more than 3% a year. Late news programs lost even more,
18%, again more than 3% each year.
In 2004 the declines in share slowed considerably. The average
early-evening newscast share declined just 1.2%, from an average
16.1 share in May 2003 to a 15.9 share in May 2004. The average
late-newscast share fell even less, from an 18.7 share to
18.6, a difference of 0.5%.
Looking next at ratings, the declines in the last year also
support the overall sense of stabilization.
Ratings for early-evening news declined 1.2% (8.3 in 2004,
compared with 8.4 in 2003).
Ratings for late news saw twice the decline, 3.9%, to 7.4
in 2004 from 7.7 in 2003. Still, these declines were relatively
modest compared with previous years.
The audience picture becomes even more nuanced, and potentially
more positive, if one also takes into consideration another
part of the day that is sometimes overlooked: early mornings.
This has been the one growth area in local news viewership
generally in recent years. How much has morning news audience
grown? Are those audiences large enough to compensate for
the loss of audience in evening and late news?
A research project led by Robert Papper of Ball State University
in Indiana, the Middletown Media Studies, found that when
media use was observed in person the results showed people
were watching more TV news than was captured by methods like
phone surveys or diaries (diaries are the method used by Nielsen
to measure TV viewership in smaller markets).
Papper intends to release a new study in 2005 that will argue
that the amount of news viewership has actually increased
rather than declined over the past twenty years.
Papper's data also suggest that TV news viewership is as
high during the morning as it is in the evening and during
prime time, with each time slot garnering between 37% and
44% of the people being observed. His data further indicate
that people who watch TV news in the morning tend to watch
a greater amount of news - 86 minutes - during that time period
than news viewers in other time slots. People who watch TV
news during the evening tend to watch about an hour of news
(61 minutes); those who watch during primetime and afterwards
watch roughly 46 minutes.
These potential findings about levels of news consumption
are tantalizing. The availability of news in more formats
and in more time periods means that the news is more convenient
and that some of it, such as traffic and weather, may be more
up to date.
Without knowing more, however, some questions need to be
considered in evaluating the growth in morning viewers.
First, it is unclear whether the gain in morning audience
really has made up for what has been lost in the evening and
late at night. The BIAfn data from May 2004 (based on Nielsen
diaries) indicate that the average morning news program nationwide
gets an audience of 4.6 ratings points, about 55% of the evening
news average (8.3 ratings points) and 62% of the late news
audience (7.4 ratings points). So the BIAfn data suggest that
the morning audience does not yet match the audiences available
during the traditional news time slots.
Second, news directors and station managers the Project consulted
on this subject would be thrilled to say their audience is
actually larger than before, but based on the ratings data
that they use for advertisers, and their own sense of their
markets, they see what we find in the BIAfn ratings. One general
manager at a station in the Midwest explained that morning
news has become such an important time slot because it appeals
to advertisers trying to reach a defined audience: "Mornings
are a place where there is a group of people who have means
and needs. They have jobs and kids and there are things they
must buy."
But the manager went on to note that in the "key demo"
of women between the ages of 25 to 54, his station's late
news audience is two to three times the size of the morning
news audience. Put bluntly, the manager declared, "I
could win the 6 and 11 o'clock news, lose the mornings, and
keep my job. Win mornings but lose the 6 and 11 and I'll get
fired."
The Ball State study, in addition, was conducted in one market,
Indianapolis.
According to BIAfn, morning news viewership in Indianapolis
is higher than in most other cities, achieving a total of
5.2 ratings points in May 2004 compared to the national average
of 4.6.
The Ball State data also look at time people spend watching
both local and network morning shows - indeed, any news between
6 a.m. and 10 a.m.
Even if the morning audience equals or exceeds what has been
lost at night, there is another point to be made about it.
Early-morning news is a different product from evening news,
one designed to repeat itself every 15 minutes and heavily
focused on delivering traffic, weather and headlines. It is
not the same kind of newscast as one might see in an hour
at 6 p.m.
Despite all these caveats, there is evidence in survey data
to support the idea that the local TV news audience may be
stabilizing. In its 2004 biannual news consumption survey,
the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, fully
59% of Americans surveyed said they watched local TV news
"regularly," compared with 57% in 2002. That is
also higher than the percentage of Americans who say they
"regularly" go to any other news outlet. This leveling
off, moreover, comes after a period of steep decline. In 1993,
76% of Americans said they were "regular" local
news viewers. That fell to 65% in 1996 and 56% in 2000.
At the same time, the percentage of Americans tuning out
local TV news has apparently stopped rising. While the Middletown
Media Studies indicate people tend to underestimate the amount
of media they use when answering surveys, pollsters argue
that looking at data over several years can still show valid
trends. Pew Research Center trend data shows that after increasing
sharply in the 1990s (from 8% in 1993 to 12% in 1997 to 20%
in 2000), the percentage of people who say they "hardly
ever" or "never" watch local TV news has remained
steady since 2000 (at 19% in 2002, and 18% in 2004).
What accounts for the slowing-down in the decline in local
news audiences? First, research suggests that much of the
past decline was due to an expanding number of households'
getting cable or satellite TV and, with more cable networks
to watch, choosing entertainment or other programming over
news. By 2004, that expansion was coming to an end, according
to a report in 2004 by the Wall Street analyst Tom Wolzien
of Sanford Bernstein, which predicted that the rapid growth
in cable viewership would slow to a crawl by the end of the
decade.
Cable expansion is not the only reason for declining local
news viewership. Research shows that other factors included
complaints about local news content (too much crime, fluff
and repetition), and changes in commuting and sleep patterns.
All of these are factors, some TV industry experts believe,
that may have reached their limit. Jon Currie, president of
Currie Communications, which specializes in interpreting Nielsen
data for local TV stations, says there is reason to believe
the steadying in audience decline could last. "At some
point there is going to be a slackening off in the decline
. . . Local [TV] news is going from a mass product to a niche
product, but there will be some people who keep watching no
matter what."
Some temporary short-term factors also could be boosting
the audience for local TV news, among them current events.
In May 2003, viewers were following the aftermath of the fall
of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship (as our data on cable viewership
indicate); in May 2004 there was interest in a presidential
campaign that had already seen both candidates criss-crossing
the country and visiting swing states. In August, most of
NBC's owned-and-operated stations saw a jump in news ratings
during the Olympics, another example of events driving viewership.
Pew Research survey data add weight to this explanation,
at least when it comes to the election. According to an August
2004 poll, 32% of Americans were following the election "very
closely," compared with 22% of Americans at the same
point in 2000.
What's more, local TV seems to be one of the most popular
sources for political news. An October 2004 Pew Research poll
found Americans more likely to say they were getting campaign
news from local TV than from any other single network or cable
news outlet, with 16% naming it as their main source for election
news.
When people were asked how they "learn something"
about the presidential campaign, a Pew Research poll in January
2004 found that 42% named local TV news. This was a higher
percentage than for any other news source. It was lower, though,
than the figure in 2000, 48%.
Another potentially positive sign is that unlike many other
news media, particularly newspapers, local TV news enjoys
viewership that is consistent across income and educational
levels. According to Pew Research Center's 2004 survey, 57%
to 62% of Americans in every income category say they watch
local news "regularly." The percentage is similar
across all levels of education (54 to 62% say they watch regularly).
The greatest disparities in the local TV news audience are
by age group. Older people in general tend to be heavier news
users (with the exception of online news), and local TV news
use fits the pattern. Seven out of ten people 65 and older
(70%) say they are "regular" local news viewers.
By comparison just under half (46%) of 18-to-29-year-olds
are "regular" local news viewers.
Still, at a time when many news outlets are worried about
appealing to younger generations, local TV news seems to be
in an enviable position. Only one in four young adults (23%)
reported reading a newspaper on the previous day when polled
by the Pew Research Center, half the amount of "regular"
local news viewers. An even smaller percentage, 18%, said
they were regular viewers of the networks' evening news programs.
The question for the industry is whether younger generations
will become more likely to watch local TV news as they "age
into" older demographics. But local TV news is fortunate
to be starting from a much higher baseline.
Blaming the Measurer: Nielsen Comes Under Attack
For those trying to understand audience trends in television,
2004 was another year of controversy over the measuring stick
- Nielsen Media Research.
Nielsen has long used electronic meters to allow broadcast
and cable networks to gather detailed data on the demographics
of their nationwide audience throughout the year. On the local
level, 56 of the largest markets are equipped with "meters"
that measure the total number of homes watching specific programs
from night to night. Nielsen also sends out paper diaries
four times a year - the "sweeps" periods - to gather
detailed demographic information on who is watching which
programs. These diaries have been the only opportunity for
individual stations to get demographic information.
How Nielsen Measures Viewers in the 210
U.S. Television Markets
As of year-end 2004
| Type of Market |
Method Used |
Number of Markets Covered |
Percent of TV Households Covered |
| Local People Meter Markets |
Local People Meters measure total viewership and viewer
demographics on a day by day basis. |
5 (to be 10 by end of 2006) |
19.4% |
| Metered Markets |
Electronic meters measure total viewership on day-to-day
basis; handwritten diaries track viewer demographics four
times a year. |
51 (46 by end of 2006) |
50.2% |
| Diary Markets |
Handwritten diaries track total viewership and viewer
demographics four times a year |
154 |
30.4% |
In 2002, Nielsen introduced a new technology, local people
meters (LPMs), which are able to track demographic data on
the local level year-round. The technology tracks what is
actually being watched on a given household's televisions
and which members of the household are watching: all members
of the household have assigned buttons on the meter that they
push to indicate they're watching television.
Local advertisers are excited by LPMs because having real-time
data on what parents are watching compared to what their children
are watching will help advertisers - toy stores, say - to
determine how to reach a particular audience. Nielsen still
measures only home TV viewing. That practice doesn't change
under the new LPMs, even though people are exposed to television
nowadays at work, while running errands, and in other non-traditional
sites.
The introduction of local people meters is an important development
for newsrooms. The devices will essentially make "sweeps"
meaningless in markets where they are used. "Sweeps"
has often been a time when newsrooms roll out the results
of months-long investigations in hopes of luring viewers,
and when stations try to use elaborate stunts and contests
to make themselves stand out to viewers filling out their
Nielsen diaries.
Instead, with local people meters, stations might potentially
have information on the exact makeup of their audience on
something close to minute-by-minute. For example, a news director
would know if women between the ages of 18 and 49 tuned out
when a particular story about identity theft aired. In fact,
the amount of new data available is so large news directors
might be too overwhelmed to absorb the possibilities.
Nonetheless, as one Los Angeles station manager put it, "Obviously,
the people meters will help with programming decisions, and
will allow us to look at demographics more quickly than waiting
for a ratings period to be over… With the new system,
the idea of sweeps products will go by the wayside… We
need to be enterprising to find news stories that are relevant."
The rollout of the new technology in New York in May 2004
stirred up controversy over whether LPMs were providing accurate
measurements of African-American and Latino viewership. A
public-relations campaign called "Don't Count Us Out"
urged Nielsen either to fix the perceived flaws in its system
or to scrap the rollout all together. Fox protested against
the new system most vocally, since its UPN-affiliated station
in New York, WWOR, saw the largest drop in viewers; a comparison
with data collected under the diary system showed that according
to the local people meters, fewer African-Americans were watching
UPN and more were watching BET.
Viacom, which owns the UPN network, was barely heard from
in the controversy - perhaps because it also owns BET.
Congressional hearings were held, and meanwhile activists
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton weighed in for (Jackson) and
against (Sharpton) the new technology. In the end Nielsen's
audit, released in July, suggested that in fact the only minority
that was not adequately represented in its sampling was Asian
TV viewers.
Nielsen's first use of local people meter technology in Boston
in 2002 met with initial resistance, in part because there,
too, the technology showed broadcast networks losing viewers
to cable programs. As the general manager of the Viacom-owned
WBZ acknowledged at the time, "Honestly, my personal
issue with it [local people meters] is that it devalues our
product… If the numbers were going up instead of down,
I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it."
Commercially owned stations stopped subscribing to Nielsen's
service, but local advertisers and ad agencies in the Boston
area saw local people meters as a more accurate way of ensuring
they were reaching the right audience, and this support allowed
Nielsen to persevere.
In January 2003, Hearst's WCVB became Boston's first major-network
affiliate to break down and subscribe to people meter service,
and in July 2003 Viacom signed a deal with Nielsen covering
its stations across the country, including WBZ, and pledged
its support for expansion of local people meters.
By the fall of 2004, Nielsen had basically won the LPM battle
in New York. The advertising community appeared ready to support
expansion there, much as it did in Boston, with one executive
declaring, "Everybody knows that it's fundamentally a
more accurate audience measurement service."
Nielsen's foes among the TV station groups, too, seemed likely
to acquiesce to the new measurement system, again as in Boston.
One TV executive, quoted anonymously, explained the industry's
attitude this way: "They'd rather complain about the
way Nielsen does business than pay for two companies to do
what Nielsen does."
The implications of LPMs for local TV news are profound.
While stations in "traditional" metered markets
know each day who's getting the most viewers, if a station
is trying to shape a newscast for a particular audience, such
as women between the ages of 18 and 49, it would have had
no way of knowing whether it succeeded until it obtained demographic
data from a "sweeps" period. Often, a bad "sweeps"
leads to a station's clearing out the personnel who failed
to hit the station's demographic targets.
With local people meters providing constant demographic data,
newsrooms in larger markets will have a clearer idea of the
audience they're reaching. In turn, this will probably increase
the pressure on news directors to structure newscasts that
will appeal to the desired audience.
The preliminary rollout of local people meters is confined
to the ten largest markets, but the constant churn of personnel
from big markets to small markets, and vice versa, means that
ideas and trends tend to circulate quickly in the local TV
news industry. If data from local people meters seem to suggest
new ways of keeping desired demographics tuned in to newscasts,
at least in big markets, these practices are likely to spread
to midsize and small markets - even if stations there lack
the technology to measure the success of their efforts.
Click
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