What Do TV Stations Need In 2010? Less National Programming, For One

TV stations need to embrace more of their localism to be successful in the coming years -- which could mean no more new court or tabloid magazine shows.

We're talking about the current failure of trying to cater to an entire DMA the same way. In the digital age, this is too much "broadcasting." Stations need to go far beyond local efforts and focus much more on micro-localism. When executives speak of local content, they are talking mostly about local news. But this may not be enough. TV stations need to get much more targeted. It would seem that for TV stations to survive long-term, they need to think beyond sending a TV station's local newscast straight to your cell phone. That alone isn't going to be the savior of TV stations.

What should change? Perhaps there should be fewer nationally distributed syndicated talk shows, court shows, magazine shows, and off-network sitcoms.