Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal had an interesting article exploring how the relationships between the major television networks and local stations may evolve in coming years. There’s speculation the networks may bypass affiliates and distribute their programming via cable channels, allowing networks to keep advertising revenues they would have otherwise shared with local stations.
Embedded in the story were some pretty dismal statistics for 2008:
- CBS stations saw a 14% drop in ad revenue in the third quarter
- ABC-owned stations saw a 15% drop in revenues in the fourth quarter
- NBC stations saw a fourth quarter decline of 25%
If that wasn’t bad enough, the Journal story reports that Bernstein Research predicts local station ad revenues will drop 20% to 30% in 2009.
Ouch.
Whether networks abandon their affiliates over the long-term is up for debate. The more immediate concern is how the stations will compensate for those lost revenues.
Look for local news to take some hits.
[...] A warning about changes to network-affiliate relationships that could harm local TV news [...]