Local TV News & Service Agreements: A Critical Look

Author: 
Coverage Type: 

Since 2000 there has been an increasing proportion of media markets in which individual stations have entered into agreements with varying levels of cooperation. These agreements are known, depending on their conditions, as shared services (SSA) agreements, local marketing/management (LMA) agreements or local news sharing (LNS) agreements. Purportedly, these agreements are expected to help relieve some of the economic burdens that are shouldered by local stations in gathering and presenting news content. The implementation of these joint agreements, whether they involve simply sharing video to sharing news-gathering resources to overall management of the station, has implications for each of the fundamental principles on which the Federal Communications Commission regulates the broadcast industry -- diversity, competition and localism. That is especially important now because the FCC is in the process of making decisions about media ownership that it postponed from 2010.

It is uncertain what impact these agreements have on the overall content of local news in markets with stations that have adopted this practice. But there are critical questions about these arrangements that must be examined. We have done so in this research by conducting a content analysis of the newscasts in eight television markets in which there is, at least, one of these types of agreements in operation. Do the stations that made these arrangements function as separate entities? What is the amount of local news that is presented on local broadcasts? What topics are covered? What production techniques are used to present the news? What resources do the stations within these agreements share? How do the stations within the agreements and those outside of the agreements in television markets compare across these dimensions? What might these arrangements mean for the consideration of media ownership regulation?

This research represents the largest examination of this phenomenon to date and it is intended to provide a baseline picture for the public and for the policy-making process of the Federal Communications Commission.


Local TV News & Service Agreements: A Critical Look