TVRev Article: The Independent Station Era Is Coming

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

This article is fascinating, especially in the wake of WPLG Miami and WANF becoming news-heavy Independents. The title is: The Independent Station Era Is Coming — Here’s How Local TV Can Survive It.

 

https://www.tvrev.com/news/the-independent-station-era-is-coming-heres-how-local-tv-can-survive-it

[Recovering Producer 410]

Loud whispers: All of this requires more money, planning, and thinking  than making existing underpaid and overworked producers, anchors, meteorologists, and directors add additional newscasts that sound nearly identical to the previous hour to their existing responsibilities. This would take investment at a level very few station ownership groups are willing to do in 2025 and beyond.

 

Great idea in a vacuum. I'll believe it when someone tries, appears to succeed, and the new programming lasts multiple budget cycles. 

[Rusty Muck 4688]

It's a cute pie-in-the-sky pollyanna wishcasting piece. Which is all that can be said.

[l_miro 245]

1 hour ago, Rusty Muck said:

It's a cute pie-in-the-sky pollyanna wishcasting piece. Which is all that can be said.

 

these industry people really are stuck in their programming from 1995. Someone update their firmware.

 

Yesterday, I wasted $15 on a Philips antenna because the paper clip wouldn't pick up 3.0 Charlotte stations. Ran into WBTV's QC Life, while browsing channels, which fits into what TVRev sees as the future of local TV. It' has worse production values than a kid Youtuber. Minimum viable content vibes, a cooking segment, segements featuring area small business which is good but overall probably a paid program. With a male host that should really go check his voice and a blonde female host version of Mortitia Adams in civilian clothes, with giant pink claws gesticulating at viewers while talking. It looked so ridiculous on my 70-inch tv. DecoDrive at least has a bite and moves with creativity.

 

 

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

ATSC 3.0 is a fever dream of the broadcasters who choose to push it on to the consumer....who have virtually no way of adopting it even though stations have been pushing it out for the last 5 or so years.

 

All it is at the moment is the same channels available in upscaled HDTV, aside from a few worthless subchannels no one will go out of their way to watch.  And is any of this in 4k?

 

I can't for the life of me even figure out a TV or even a dongle that's readily available to pick up these channels.  Until it's an actually regulated thing (likely by force), it's dead in the water.

 

Streaming delivers the 4K and is readily available through easily obtainable devices without the headache and bureaucy of the FCC.  But it will cost you.

[l_miro 245]

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

ATSC 3.0 is a fever dream of the broadcasters who choose to push it on to the consumer....who have virtually no way of adopting it even though stations have been pushing it out for the last 5 or so years.

 

All it is at the moment is the same channels available in upscaled HDTV, aside from a few worthless subchannels no one will go out of their way to watch.  And is any of this in 4k?

 

I can't for the life of me even figure out a TV or even a dongle that's readily available to pick up these channels.  Until it's an actually regulated thing (likely by force), it's dead in the water.

 

Streaming delivers the 4K and is readily available through easily obtainable devices without the headache and bureaucy of the FCC.  But it will cost you.

 

my TV came built with 3.0 tuner, most/many have it now, outside of LG which doesn't want to pay $6-$10 per ATSC 3.0 tuner. The cost to get approval for decryption is also high so there are many TVs being sold that will see 3.0 encrypted channels but won't play video. Lon.TV reported people have contacted him saying their TVs periodically fail to decrypt with video and audio are cutting out or becoming entirely unavailable for periods.

 

A big thing with ATSC 3.0 encryption many people are unaware of - every ATSC 3.0 tuner comes with a cypher certificate inside it that expires on a set date. The duration depends on what the manufacturer paid ATSC for decryption rights but reports on AVS Forum and elsewhere say it is as short as 5 years, and others 10 years. Same model devices could have different expiration dates set in the factory. Once the decryption certificate expires encrypted channels won't be viewable and it will require a new device as there's no mechanism to update the certificates.

A lot of devices also deploy decryption with Google Widevine (Big, bad BigTech) that requires connection to the internet, either once or periodically to get a decryption key.

 

Here in Charlotte the big 4 are airing from WAXN's tower to the north of me in uptown. Clear from the skyscrapers, TV tuner couldn't see them with the paperclip even though I picked up nearby LPTVs. Had to get antenna. All but WJYZ are encrypted, 1080p, WAXN is at 720p. I saw no discrenible difference, maybe a scooch better than 1.0 but hard to tell, granted Family Feud and QC Life were on at the time, it didn't look to me like a real 1080p broadcast. Youtube 1080p looks much more clear and sharp so they're probably upscaling.

[mre29 1967]

27 minutes ago, l_miro said:

A big thing with ATSC 3.0 encryption many people are unaware of - every ATSC 3.0 tuner comes with a cypher certificate inside it that expires on a set date. The duration depends on what the manufacturer paid ATSC for decryption rights but reports on AVS Forum and elsewhere say it is as short as 5 years, and others 10 years. Same model devices could have different expiration dates set in the factory. Once the decryption certificate expires encrypted channels won't be viewable and it will require a new device as there's no mechanism to update the certificates.

 

That seems like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen, especially if the TVs are otherwise still fully usable.

 

[Weeters 2173]

Did whoever wrote this just crawl out from under a rock? Seriously. Some of this is already happening ("Community roundtables and town halls") and it's usually a snoozefest that doesn't attract any more eyeballs than normal.

 

Nobody is going to run "Neighborhood lifestyle shows, spotlighting local eateries, artisans, cultural scenes, and hidden gems." without there being some kind of time buy for the privilege. 

 

Broadcasting high school sports would have been a big deal 15 years ago... when a lot of schools started streaming themselves. A lot of stations with union representation would find the costs to do this in-house enormous and not worth the effort.

 

This reads like broadcast stations should turn into public access outlets, which already exist.

[TheRob 969]

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Considering the shrinking airspace, the idea of narrowcasting to the same audience is the anthesis of broadcasting itself....serving a wide audience.

 

Niches are easily served online where the bandwidth is unlimited and regulations are non-existent for the most part.

[Hometown News 127]

On 8/22/2025 at 3:51 PM, Recovering Producer said:

Loud whispers: All of this requires more money, planning, and thinking  than making existing underpaid and overworked producers, anchors, meteorologists, and directors add additional newscasts that sound nearly identical to the previous hour to their existing responsibilities. This would take investment at a level very few station ownership groups are willing to do in 2025 and beyond.

 

Great idea in a vacuum. I'll believe it when someone tries, appears to succeed, and the new programming lasts multiple budget cycles. 

 

This. But I'll add that these stations are in for a rude awakening if they think they can succeed being "the CNN of [insert market here]" with a schedule of 95% redundant local newscasts. People's brains have not been rotted by local news like they have by national politics over the past few decades, so there is no real audience for 24/7 local news. At the same time, syndication is absolute crap nowadays and these stations would be left to pick from the least desirable shows, so you can't build a station on that either.

 

Any serious attempt at making independence work would have to look more like ITV's old system in the UK. Gray, Hearst, Sinclair, Nexstar, etc. would have to become full-scale production companies making a variety of programming (not just news) to fill out each other's schedules. I'm not particularly optimistic for that to happen either. If anyone in the linear TV business had that much ambition or competitive spirit, this would all be a moot point because they wouldn't have gotten their asses kicked by streaming in the first place. What they'll most likely do is run their news operations into the ground and then use their failure as an excuse to give up and take all those stations off the air, and blame Netflix for it.

Edited August 23, 2025 by Hometown News

[mre29 1967]

8 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Considering the shrinking airspace, the idea of narrowcasting to the same audience is the anthesis of broadcasting itself....serving a wide audience.

 

Niches are easily served online where the bandwidth is unlimited and regulations are non-existent for the most part.

 

The Internet is the great equalizer.

 

Corollary:  Podcasts are the fulfillment of the promise of spoken-word radio.

 

 

[MediaZone4K 2661]

The ideas sound noble on paper but the reality...

 

IMO the main way for independent stations to retain what little broadcast audience remains is decent syndicated programming -- * but the options are few and stations don't want to pay for it.

Edited August 26, 2025 by MediaZone4K

[mre29 1967]

12 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

IMO the main way for independent stations to retain what little broadcast audience remains is decent syndicated programming. But's which is few in number and stations don't want to pay for it.

 

And that's how we ended up with station scheduless full of endless court shows, conflict talkers, and Family Feud.

 

[MediaZone4K 2661]

8 hours ago, mre29 said:

 

And that's how we ended up with station scheduless full of endless court shows, conflict talkers, and Family Feud.

 

In addition to soaps and game shows, isn't that how it's always been? That's better than all news all day long.

[Megatron81 343]

Pie in the sky from that article sounds to be PBS lite to me and I'm not into PBS I'll leave it at that. Kinda how I feel about townhall meetings which are on the public access channels which I find them to be boring, and I'd not watch it on a main channel with better video quality either.  

[Bsean 173]

On 8/23/2025 at 4:08 PM, Hometown News said:

 

This. But I'll add that these stations are in for a rude awakening if they think they can succeed being "the CNN of [insert market here]" with a schedule of 95% redundant local newscasts. People's brains have not been rotted by local news like they have by national politics over the past few decades, so there is no real audience for 24/7 local news. At the same time, syndication is absolute crap nowadays and these stations would be left to pick from the least desirable shows, so you can't build a station on that either.

 

Any serious attempt at making independence work would have to look more like ITV's old system in the UK. Gray, Hearst, Sinclair, Nexstar, etc. would have to become full-scale production companies making a variety of programming (not just news) to fill out each other's schedules. I'm not particularly optimistic for that to happen either. If anyone in the linear TV business had that much ambition or competitive spirit, this would all be a moot point because they wouldn't have gotten their asses kicked by streaming in the first place. What they'll most likely do is run their news operations into the ground and then use their failure as an excuse to give up and take all those stations off the air, and blame Netflix for it.

I'd say KTLA is probably a station that could be closer to this model. They already have a slew of non newscast shows (California cooking, Frank Buckley Interviews, Off the Clock, inside California politics, LA unscripted). A lot of the shows are currently weekend only with the exception of a few. They also produce Red Carpet shows for all the awards shows; they could definitely produce daily entertainment shows. They also produce telethons. KTLA is definitely a station that could pull it off.

[MicFlag 33]

In my market, if you combine all of the channels, you can watch live local news with an antenna from 4 a.m. until 8 p.m. M-F, except for the 3 o’clock hour. There isn’t that much news to report anywhere.

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

13 minutes ago, MicFlag said:

In my market, if you combine all of the channels, you can watch live local news with an antenna from 4 a.m. until 8 p.m. M-F, except for the 3 o’clock hour. There isn’t that much news to report anywhere.

 

I wanna play this game. Your market is not Los Angeles because they're missing the 2 p.m. hour. Not Cleveland because they're still missing 10 a.m. and 1-3 p.m. Not Boston either, because while WFXT did add 1 and 3 p.m. news this week, WBTS also offers a 2 p.m. option under Boston News Daily. Its not Vegas (no 10 a.m.), nor Phoenix (no 4 a.m., 10 a.m., or 2 p.m.)

 

I wonder which one it is?

[Rusty Muck 4688]

6 hours ago, MicFlag said:

In my market, if you combine all of the channels, you can watch live local news with an antenna from 4 a.m. until 8 p.m. M-F, except for the 3 o’clock hour. There isn’t that much news to report anywhere.

Exactly. Excessive amounts of local news only works in LA and even then those channels use the almost-daily live high speed pursuits as agonizing filler.

 

More local news only shows the sheer brain rot from overpaid high-ranking executives who have no other ideas. It never translates into better working conditions or higher wages among the staff that have to front the burden while the fatcat owners don't give a rat's butt.

 

Unlike others who seemingly are unable to ever see the point, I don't need to know where you live. Cleveland has an excessive amount of local news, as does Toledo or even Tuscon, Arizona. It's endemic.