The FCC Chairman Recognizing the Critical Role of Local Broadcasting in Our Nation’s Media Landscape
By Robert C. Kenny | April 20, 2015
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s keynote address at the NAB Show in Las Vegas last week explained how broadcasting advances the public interest and represents an “important part of our future.” He acknowledged that local broadcasters are “the most important source of breaking news” and the first place the American public turns to for accurate and timely updates during emergencies.
Traditional TV remains the most widely accessible platform that a majority of the nation’s consumers use to access network and local broadcast TV news and programming. In fact, a recent study illustrates that Americans prefer traditional TV as a means to access video content, led by the highly-popular network primetime shows and sports, as well as local TV content produced by broadcasters.
Today, American consumers generally watch 149 hours per month of broadcast and cable programming on traditional television. This reveals an often overlooked fact, that even in the face of seismic and irreversible changes in video viewership patterns and use resulting from Internet-based video, Americans continue to choose home TV viewing as their most popular way to access video programming. Even millennials, whose abandoning of traditional pay-TV has been well-documented, still watch on average two-and-a-half hours per day of television in the home.
Of course, the video marketplace continues to evolve as we witness a migration to web-based, over-the-top (OTT) services away from pay-TV. Despite this evolution, traditional TV, with its unique and local content is still thriving. The latest data shows that television viewers value their access to network and local broadcast TV, whether over-the-air or through a paid TV subscription (if they can afford it).
Policies governing the video marketplace of the future must both advance and reflect the growing role of internet-based OTT services and consumers’ continuing demand for access to broadcast TV through both traditional in-home means and an ever-expanding broadband world. Most importantly, it is essential that the FCC ensures that technology shifts enhance, but do not undermine, local TV stations in their efforts to serve their communities.
Chairman Wheeler said it best: “The expansion of OTT programming and broadcasting’s place in this new world is a matter of mutual interest (for broadcasters and federal regulators).” The FCC and TV broadcasters should continue to work together to realize the benefits of the “new world” the Chairman speaks of so that a vibrant over-the-air broadcasting industry will be able to fulfill its historic localism mission and continue to provide tremendous value to the American public.
Kenny is director of Public Affairs for TVfreedom.org, a coalition of local broadcasters, community advocates, network TV affiliate associations and other independent organizations advocating for preserving the retransmission consent regime. He is a former press secretary at the FCC.
