LiveFromHere

Markets with at least a Tegna/Nexstar duopoly, if not a triopoly or quadopoly between them: Ft. Smith, Little Rock, Sacramento, San Diego, Denver, Hartford, Washington, D.C., Tampa/St. Pete, Indianapolis, Des Moines, Quad Cities, New Orleans, Grand Rapids, St. Louis, Buffalo, Charlotte, Greensboro, Cleveland, Columbus, Portland, Ore., Scranton-Wilkes Barre, Harrisburg-Lancaster-York, Knoxville, Memphis, Abilene, Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Midland-Odessa, San Angelo, Tyler, Tex., Norfolk. This deal doesn’t make financial sense if you buy these stations and keep separate news departments running. Most, if not all, of these markets stand to lose a news operation.

DMA includes Dallas and Fort Worth plus suburbs and a multi-county area that is North Texas. These are some of the fastest-growing parts of the country - esp. Fort Worth and suburbs north of Dallas. Kind of towns with a pop of 43,000 now but 378,000 projected at build out. If growth continues, this will be the third-largest metro area of the country by the 2030s, passing Chicago.

Sure, WFAA wasn’t what it once was. But the entire broadcast business has changed and will change some more. But from a storytelling, writing, Big-J Journalism perspective, it is the best in the market, hands down. Even if Tegna-tized. Chs. 4 and 5 are often … boring. And who knows what’s going on at Ch. 11. Weakest talent bench of the four.

I applaud Scripps for trying something different. Emphasis on the trying part. I just question the well of reporting talent. I fear it’s drying up. Fewer people want these jobs - a daily slog of MMJ’ing across ever-expanding newscasts, plus social media duties. If you want to still tell stories but make money and keep your sanity, you go corporate. If you want to be on camera, you become an influencer on social. Look at what Scripps is turning: neighborhood news has a why-should-I-care quality. Unless it’s your neighborhood. Making people care means finding characters and relatable facts, widening your storytelling sweep to bring in all your audience. Which takes skill. Which I’m not sure you’re getting from people new to the business or from non-traditional broadcasting backgrounds like school teaching or newspapering. Again, admirable for Scripps to be trying. But much of what they’re putting on the air or publishing is … rough. Stylistically. Editorially.

This is doing news on the cheap, circa 2024. Asking existing talent to double up, triple up on their duties. Will their contracts be adjusted accordingly for the added workloads? Notice there are no outside hires, no poaching another anchor for millions. This may all be a placeholder anyway. The network’s news division in its current form is probably in doubt post Paramount sale to Skydance.