I know it's because of budget issues. But living in a top 3 market and watching local news is totally different. I travel a lot and some of those small market newscasts are almost unwatchable. It's kind of like radio when the market talent is so horrible due to lack of experience etc they get replaced with a out of market host. Same thing here bad anchors news sets that look 20 years old . Screw it I would just centralize everything too. But I think they should have a local weatherman. As well as who cares about it being live , they should have the National anchors read a few local stories and edit them in to the newscast so it flows like it's a actual local newscast . Because let's be honest in some of these small towns the local news isn't that plentiful and really doesn't have to be live . But there should be some local flavor not just all National.