TV Ratings: Local TV News Sees Spike In Viewers

Local television stations are experiencing a rare surge in viewership as more Americans tune in for coronavirus updates. But the stations are unlikely to benefit financially because of a cutback in advertising spending.

“We have more viewers than ever, but advertisers are unfortunately stuck in the same economic boat as many of us,” said Patrick McCreery, president of the local media group of Meredith Corp., MDP 1.48% which owns 17 TV stations.

Local broadcast journalists are producing segments from their homes and on the street, as they are considered essential workers. Many viewers are leaning on local TV news for constant updates in their communities.

Spikes in local-TV viewership aren’t unusual when a specific market gets hit by a major disaster, such as Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Nexstar Chief Executive Perry Sook said. What’s different this time, he said, is that the coronavirus pandemic “is a disaster that’s playing out across the entire nation.”

Wall Street Journal Graphic

Local broadcasts aren’t the only news stations experiencing surges in audience. Daytime cable news viewership for channels including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Fox Business more than quadrupled from a year earlier, according to measurement firm Samba TV.

Charter Communications Inc.’s local Spectrum News, offered to traditional pay-TV subscribers, experienced a 71% increase in household viewership in mid-March compared with prior weeks.

The rise in viewership comes as companies pull back on advertising spending.

“It’s a tale of two cities,” said Kyle Evans, a media analyst at Stephens Inc. “On one side your viewership has been teleported back to the 1950s, when people crowded around their TV at home and watched the news. On the other side, advertising is dropping off and not matching those viewership numbers.”

Advertising is often among the first things cut by companies looking to preserve cash in times of crisis, because it is seen as discretionary spending within many corporations, marketers said. Ad-buying giant Magna Global last week slashed its U.S. advertising forecast as economic conditions continue to worsen because of the coronavirus pandemic, whose impact it likened to “a combination of the Great Recession and 9/11.”

Local TV broadcasters say the automobile industry makes up a key portion of advertising revenue, but auto sales are dropping. Political advertising is another large contributor to local TV stations’ revenue, and the postponement of many primaries because of the virus means that advertising revenue is likely to be pushed to later in the year, company executives said.