What's Local About
Local Broadcasting?

A Joint Report of the
Media Access Project &
Benton Foundation

April 1998

What's local about local broadcasting? An analysis of a two-week period in late February and early March finds that the answer is "not much." Broadcasters in five markets chosen to represent conditions in small towns and big cities around the country are providing almost no programming that addresses local issues in the communities they serve. The numbers are staggering:

In the five markets combined, 40 commercial broadcasters provided 13,250 total hours of programming -- just 0.35% (46.5 hours) were devoted to local public affairs.

In three markets -- Nashville, Tennessee, Spokane, Washington, and Bangor, Maine -- not one commercial station aired any local public affairs programming.

35% of the stations surveyed provide no local news; 25% offer neither local public affairs programming or local news.

A total of two hours of local public affairs programming was available between 6:00pm and midnight, when viewership numbers are highest. Just two stations aired any local public affairs during this time period.

Background

Local programming is the keystone commitment of America's broadcast system and the basis for the licensing scheme under which every broadcaster operates. The nation has hundreds of commercial broadcasters in place not to rebroadcast national programming, but to be responsive to the interests, convenience, and necessity of the communities they serve. This compact between local broadcasters and their communities -- that a broadcaster receives a license to act as a public trustee of the public interest -- is expressed in both court rulings and Federal Communications Commission policy.

Under the Communications Act of 1934, applicants for broadcast licenses must agree to provide program service to the particular community to which they are licensed. This requirement was the basis for the United States Court of Appeals ruling in 1956 that in requiring "a fair, efficient and equitable distribution" of service, Section 307(b) of the Communications Act encompasses "not only the reception of an adequate signal but also community needs for programs of local interest and importance and for organs of local self-expression." The Court affirmed that "the prime factor" in broadcast programming regulation "is the presentation of programs of local interest and importance."(1)

The local basis of its service distinguishes broadcasting from cable and satellite services which consist almost entirely of national programming and (in the case of cable) retransmission of local TV stations. News, public affairs programming and other opportunities for local self-expression are the most important of the 14 specific programming "elements usually necessary to meet the... needs and desires of the community in which the station is located...," as enumerated in the FCC's classic formulation of public interest programming obligations, issued in 1960:

The principal ingredient of such obligation consists of a diligent, positive and continuing effort by the licensee to discover and fulfill the tastes, needs and desires of his service area.(2)

Methodology

What's Local About Local Broadcasting was designed and analyzed by staff of the Benton Foundation in consultation with the Media Access Project. This study is based on analysis of television programming listings on clickTV < http://www.clicktv.com/>, a comprehensive TV information Website from TVData. The site provides 24-hour program listings for markets around the country and identifies types of programming including public affairs. Information from clickTV was complemented by telephone conversations with programming staff at select stations to identify programs as national or local and to confirm clickTV's identification. Staff also consulted station web sites, TV listings in online versions of local newspapers when available, and TV Guide Magazine.

The study examines all programming between Monday, February 23 and Sunday, March 8, 1998. The time period was chosen to avoid interference in normal programming due to the 1998 Winter Olympic Games or "sweeps weeks."

The study includes every full power television station in five US markets: Chicago, Illinois; Phoenix, Arizona; Nashville, Tennessee; Spokane, Washington; and Bangor, Maine. The markets were selected to represent Top 10, Top 25, Top 50, Top 100, and 100+ Nielsen markets and for geographic diversity.

The resulting sample consists of 40 full power, commercial stations and 13,250 hours of programming.

Local public affairs programming is defined as programs devoted to local issues of governance or civic affairs. Public affairs programs and opportunity for local self-expression were two of the fourteen elements of programming that would usually be necessary to meet the Federal Communications Commission's public interest standard.(3)

Findings -- National

The five-market survey found that commercial broadcasters are doing little local public affairs programming. In the five markets combined, 40 commercial broadcasters provided 13,250 total hours of programming over a two-week period. Just 46.5 hours (or 0.35% of total programming) were devoted to local public affairs.

Seventy percent of the commercial stations in our survey do no local public affairs programming at all. Just two hours of local public affairs programming were available between 6:00pm and midnight when viewership numbers are highest. Much of the local public affairs programming is found in the early morning hours on Saturdays and Sundays -- before 8:00am.

Broadcasters claim that this obligation is met by carriage of news and public service announcements. However, the survey showed that one-fourth of the stations carried no news or public affairs programming. Moreover, while public service announcements can be of considerable value to a community, by definition they do nothing to educate or inform citizens about elections, legislation, political controversies or other matters relating to self-governance.

While those stations that carry locally-produced newscasts do provide coverage of such events, the legal obligation is on each station to make a contribution to coverage of local affairs. Ten of the 40 stations carried no local programming.

Moreover, genuine discussion of local issues on newscasts appears to be an ever-smaller proportion of newscasts. A recently published survey conducted by a consortium of eight universities showed that, once weather, sports and advertising are excluded, "government and politics" comprised only 15.3% of local newscast content. By contrast, crime news was 29.3% of the "news hole." (Cities studied were New York, Miami, Chicago, Syracuse, Los Angeles, Austin and Indianapolis.)

A March 1998 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Center for Media and Public Affairs documents similar findings about coverage of crime. Assessing Local Television News Coverage of Health Issues reports that crime is the most common topic of local newscasts. In a typical 30-minute newscast, commercials (8 minutes), crime (4 minutes), and sports (4 minutes) make up more than half the air time, the study found. All other topics averaged one minute or less.

ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC affiliates air national public affairs programming like This Week, Face the Nation, Fox Sunday News, and Meet the Press, but there is rarely a local complement to such programming.

Findings -- Chicago

Chicago, Illinois is Nielsen Market #3. The market is served by 12 commercial stations. In the two-week period 2/23/98-3/8/98, these stations provided 3,995 hours of programming -- 12.5 hours were devoted to local public affairs.

Five stations -- WBBM, WCIU, WSNS, WJYS, and WGBO -- provide no local public affairs programming at all.

WMAQ aired a special one-hour Decision Ninety-Eight Debate before the Illinois primary on Sunday, March 8 at 11:00am. WLS aired one half hour of local public affairs, Chicagoing, on the same Sunday at 11:30am. On Saturday mornings from 6:00am to 7:00am, WGN airs Charlando and People to People. WFLD airs 32 This Week and Esta Semana between 6:00 and 7:00am on Sundays. On Mondays at 12:00am, WCFC airs Bruce Dumont. On Saturdays between 6:00am and 7:00am, WPWR airs Power to Make a Difference and Dimensions Northwest Indiana. Sundays at 6:00am, WEHS airs In Your Interest.

Sixty-four percent of the local public affairs programming shown on commercial stations is aired between 6-7:00am on Saturday and Sunday mornings; another 16% is shown at midnight on Mondays.

Just 2.5 hours of local public affairs programming on commercial stations is available at times when people are likely to be awake to see it.

Four stations -- WCIU, WPWR, WEHS, and WJYS -- offer no local news.

View station-by-station data in Adobe Acrobat.

Chicago Commercial Station List:
WBBM (CBS) WMAQ (NBC) WLS (ABC) WGN (WB) WCIU (Ind) WFLD (FOX) WCFC (Ind) WSNS (TEL) WPWR (UPN/Ind) WEHS (HSN) WJYS (Ind) WGBO (TEL)
Station Contact Information

2
WBBM
CBS
Chicago (Cook) IL
Owner: CBS Inc.
630 N. McClurg Ct. 60611
Tel: 312/944-6000 Fax: 312/943-7193

5
WMAQ
NBC
Chicago (Cook) IL
Owner: NBC Subsidiary Inc.
NBC Tower-454 N. Columbus Dr. 60611-5555
Tel: 312/836-5555 Fax: 312/527-4825

7
WLS
ABC
Chicago (Cook) IL
Owner: WLS Television Inc.
190 N. State St. 60601
Tel: 312/750-7777 Fax: 312/633-7015

9
WGN
WB
Chicago (Cook) IL
Owner: WGN Continental Broadcasting
2501 Bradley Place 60618
Tel: 312/528-2311 Fax: 312/528-6857
Email:

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