The name Local News Service refers to a variety of news resource share services all started in 2008 and 2009. It sometimes does not refer to a specific sharing service but to the category in general. Typically, these services include pooling video crews to cover routine events and sharing

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

s used for newsgathering. For 2009, the biggest development for local TV was content pooling. NBC-Fox partnerships are called Local News Service.

History

Since 2000, Fox News, ABC and CBS have been partners in a national news pool partnership. In January 2009, NBC Local Media and

Fox Television Stations Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Co ...

set up the first Local News Service with their Philadelphia stations after testing since the summer 2008. Fox and NBC then added other markets where they both own stations. In March, the first local news pool not formed by the NBC-Fox alliance was formed in Columbus, OH by

Media General Media General was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-Dispatch ...

WCMH-TV WCMH-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on Olentangy River Road near the Ohio State University campus, and its transm ...

and

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...

WSYX WSYX (channel 6) is a television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States, affiliated with ABC, MyNetworkTV and Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to TBD station WTTE (channel 28, owned by Cunningha ...

and WTTE. On April 1, Fox Stations entered into its first pooling agreements without NBC in Phoenix (

KSAZ-TV KSAZ-TV (channel 10) is a television station in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, broadcasting the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV station KUTP (channel 45). Both ...

) with Scripps'

KNXV-TV KNXV-TV (channel 15) is a television station in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside CW affiliate KASW (channel 61). Both stations share studios on 44th Street on the city' ...

and Meredith's KPHO-TV and in Detroit (

WJBK WJBK (channel 2) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, airing programming from the Fox network. Owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division, the station maintains studios and transmitter faciliti ...

) with Scripps's

WXYZ-TV WXYZ-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside independent station WMYD (channel 20). Both stations share studios at Broadcast House on ...

. The Fox (

WFLD WFLD (channel 32) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside Gary, Indiana–licensed MyNetworkTV ...

)-NBC (

WMAQ-TV WMAQ-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo outlet WSNS-TV (c ...

) partnership on May 11 started its Chicago pool its first with outside members:

Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on th ...

's WGN-TV and

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

WBBM-TV WBBM-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington Str ...

. On June 29, 2009, six weeks after the start of the Atlanta group, WGCL-TV exited the pool as they considered it restraining their ability to differentiation. The Orlando local news service launched July 16, 2009 is the first to include a local news cable channel,

Central Florida News 13 News 13 (also officially known as Spectrum News 13 as of September 24, 2017) is an American cable news television channel owned by Charter Communications. The channel provides 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on Central Florida, ...

Issues

There is some concern that these agreements will cause local news coverage to be overly similar "or will enhance it." The involved stations claim that it will help the stations by allowing more specialized reporting by not tying up resourcing for routine events. Many of the stations involved have reduced news staff due to decreased advertising revenue. Fracturing audiences will continue the revenue decline and the need to continue to reduce costs. These partnerships are a natural solution along with outsourcing and other partnerships and content sharing to the revenue decline. However, the member stations may use the local news services as a reason for even more reduction in personnel. Others say that it will be difficult for rivals to work together.

News share services

a. Also share in an "aerial news footage partnership" h. Helicopter shares 1. WANF, then called WGCL-TV, dropped out of the news share pool.

Helicopter shares only

References

{{Television news in the United States 2008 in American television 2009 in American television 2008 introductions 2009 introductions Television news in the United States

History

Issues

News share services

Helicopter shares only

See also

References