When wildfires tore through Los Angeles last year, Californians did what they have always done in an emergency: they turned on local news. Station viewership doubled and tripled. But the newsrooms that delivered that coverage are also the ones quietly disappearing.
At CalInnovates, we work at the intersection of technology and public policy. We are pro-innovation, pro-competition, and unapologetic about the role technology plays in driving the state forward. That is precisely why we are paying close attention to what is happening to local broadcast news, and why the most important variable in the conversation is too often missing: the platforms that have fundamentally restructured how Californians get information, and what that restructuring has cost the local journalism we still depend on.
Local broadcast television is not an artifact of an earlier media era. For tens of millions of Californians, it is still the primary way they learn what is happening in their cities, their schools, and their neighborhoods. When the wildfires came through Los Angeles this past January, local station viewership surged because in a moment of genuine emergency, Californians still turned to trusted local news sources.
But the advertising economy that once funded local newsrooms has fundamentally changed, with just five tech companies now accounting for roughly two-thirds of digital ad spending. That shift has hollowed out the business model behind the reporters covering Sacramento, the Fresno and Bakersfield city councils, and school boards from San Diego to Oakland.
Local broadcast news cannot compete in the media market if they continue to lose advertising revenue to social media and streaming companies. This is the lens through which the Nexstar-TEGNA merger should be looked at. That deal has made news here in California with Attorney General Bonta leading a lawsuit to block it. The combined company would give local broadcasters the scale to keep newsrooms staffed and expand local programming. Scale isn’t inherently beneficial, but in order to preserve competition and local journalism in today’s media market, scale is required to remain viable.
California has a particular stake in getting this balance right. We benefit enormously from the tech economy with jobs, big investments in our state, and a large tax base. But the unintended winners of blocking this deal are the same platforms already capturing most of today’s ad dollars. But California also depends on strong local institutions and reliable civic information. The reporting produced by local broadcasters is critical. Local broadcasters tell us when a wildfire shifts direction, when a school board changes its budget, when a city council votes on something that changes the block. Local broadcasting is how a family-owned restaurant in East LA reaches its neighbors and how a city council in Long Beach lets constituents know what it just voted to do. National outlets don’t cover this. And social media posts can’t replace it.
Rather than litigating this deal, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost took a different path and negotiated a binding commitment from Nexstar to preserve newsroom staffing and local programming. That is a model Attorney General Bonta should seriously consider. The protections Californians actually need, including independent newsrooms, sustained local coverage, and jobs, can be secured at the negotiating table. That path is faster, more certain, and more likely to preserve local journalism than a long drawn-out court fight that, even if successful, only locks in a status quo for a broadcast industry in deep trouble.
We believe innovation is supposed to strengthen communities, not hollow them out. Preserving local journalism in California will require policymakers to recognize the realities of today’s media economy and support solutions that allow trusted local broadcasters to survive and compete.
Dustan Batton is the Executive Director of CALinnovates. Dustan has been with the organization for over a decade and played a pivotal role in leading advocacy and organizing efforts across a host of critical technology and innovation issues.
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