The Impact of Local Television in Today’s Society

Local video recording in Todays Society Since the early 1940s, it has been clearly evident that picture has play a crucial role in the way people nail and perceive parole media on a day to day basis. fit in to State of the News Media, viewership and ratings take a shit drastically changed over the socio-economic anatomys and as of 2012, it is suggested that it is in large part due to the pressing and irreversible carrier bag towards mixer media.Now our dry land not only relies on our friendly topical anaesthetic anesthetic anesthetic word of honorworthinesscasters to fill us in on the weather or disruption intelligence information irst thing in the morning, but also on the up-to-the-minute KRQE tweet on Twitter or status up term on Facebook. Our world is turning digital and as hard-fought as numerous may try to stop it, there is no denying that a future tense in news will rely heavily on the energy and effectiveness of social media. So where does this leave our l ocal television send and ultimately, how will this digital frenzy effect t successor overall viewership, ratings and longevity?This is the magnanimous concern in our local news media world today and a question that must be questioned and actively researched to ensure the future of local elevision news. Throughout the course of this semester, the students in this Media Management course have had the prospect to pick the brains of non-homogeneous news anchors, producers, directors, and Journalists to question and investigate this shift from two print media and local television, to our growing reliance on internet and various social networking sites.Each of our guests was forced to explore the same question In a condemnation of slipping credibility and growing opinion, how do you succeed in the digital era while maintaining values and traditions of spectacular Journalism that rought us here in the first place? With no surprise, each speaker unit responded with a similar statem ent. The gist being that as a society, we must, as a whole, focus on seeking the truth behind any story. We must admit valid, reliable and clock timely information that pertains and relates to the lives of every element in our community and remain a trustworthy source of news for years to come.We must place precedence on social right. Seems a lot easier said than done considering there has been a noticeable fall in local TV news viewership since 2007. And lthough there was a lis umteen augment in 2011, the mostly steady decline has been cause for great concern in the news world. While reading the actual touchstone of information that State of the News Media provided on this issue, it was apparent that network and local stations alike are predominantly losing viewers (or in some rare cases reaching a time of stabilization) in two primetime television spots as well as in nontraditional time slots.The research suggests that although there is the occasional increase in viewer s during multiplication of national or worldwide distress, there is indeed a uantitative pulsation proving simply a sta bilization ot local news audiences in specific time slots (no increase) versus the drastic decline that was evident beginning in 2007. However, this improvement was not substantial enough to propose that local TV news has entered a plosive speech sound of new audience growth. According to SNM, viewership of network affiliates was up for newscasts in both the morning (5 to 7 a. m. ) and late evening (11 p. m. when averaged across all sweeps periods studied. In the early evening time slot (5 to 7 p. m. , viewership was down slightly. Delving a little deeper into the sweeps periods offered a clue to at least one priming behind the improvement there has been higher interest in the news (for example the coverage of the chaos, rebellion, and distress surrounding Egypt and Libya earlier in the year or the 2012 Presidential election. ) But breaking news or never-endi ng coverage of a significant event may not continuously dominate the airwaves considering there are times when news is slow and not as easily accessible.At that point reporters must rely on heir own investigative skills and creative thinking to find their own stories to give out and examine. These facts were reiterated by a large number of our guest speakers in class including Alex Tomlin, Bill Anderson, Doug Fernandez and Jessica Garrate. They all made it a clear point to discuss the importance of understanding the average news consumers daily routine, the most overcritical time of day that any one individual can be reached and what it is that truly attracts a news consumer to a particular station. That is the indeed the primeval to success for any local station.Understand the consumer and their wants and needs, take initiative on determination imperative stories regarding our community, and consistently provide viewers with the most up to date and relevant news possible while maintaining a good theme by being credible, reliable and original. In todays news world, this in many instances means Jumping on that social media bandwagon and making the decision to provide consumers with play by plays via the internet. Almost every station in the country now has a Facebook page, according to the annual RTDNA/Hofstra survey, and almost 90% have t least one Twitter feed. (SNM, 2012) This move to digital news has proven to be in some cases effective, and in others somewhat remote to the success of local stations (or newspapers) as mentioned by Bill Anderson, common manager of KRQE, and Dan Mayfield, Sr. writer for NM Business Weekly. However, although results of viewer increase due to social media is not definitive it has great potential to go bad a positive influence for any news team because social media can encourage consumers to sample any stations newscast.And once that seed has been planted, it becomes the responsibility of the news team to deliver a qual ity show that maintains that viewers interest. Alex Tomlin, news reporter and correspondent for KRQE, discussed in great detail the value of delivering hard and entertaining news, without focusing on the trend of social media. She mentioned briefly how a reliance on networking sites is viewed in the news world as a method of being lazy and therefore unreliable because it is difficult to portion any fact to the alleged statements being made.