Few would quibble that it is the age of streaming. Ratings across broadcast primetime are ailing, while series on the streamers, whether it was Tiger King on Netflix in the early days of the pandemic, The Mandalorian on Disney Plus more recently or another hit on another streamer, are commanding the eyeballs and buzz. 

But a funny thing happened when the massive news stories of the past year-plus, including the pandemic, the racial reckoning following George Floyd’s death and a monumental presidential election, dropped on America. Lots and lots of viewers turned to their trusted local stations for perspective on the major issues. The hot streamers may have dazzling entertainment fare, but what they didn’t have was the latest news on COVID-19 in Columbus, or protests in Portland. 

“What’s missing from all those services is local news and information,” Bill Hague, executive VP at consulting firm Magid, said. “The void on the streamers is local news and information. People still want to know what the weather is going to be, and the latest on COVID.”

A Pew Research Center survey from April 2020 revealed the level of trust viewers have in their local TV outlets. Asked which source gets the facts right about COVID-19 “almost all or most of the time,” 50% of the respondents said “your local news media,” higher than “news media in general” at 44% and then-President Donald Trump and his administration (30%). 

Pew also reported that 23% of respondents tuned in more to state and local news on the pandemic, while 15% follow network news more. 

When the virus became a big news story early in 2020, local TV viewing skyrocketed. That so many people were stuck at home, and free to watch the noon news, the 4 p.m. telecast, the early evening programs, and live updates at various times of the day, boosted ratings dramatically. “The pandemic really underlined the value of local news,” said Stacy Owen, president and general manager of KNTV-KSTS in the San Francisco Bay Area. “When it comes to a story like that, people want to know, what about my county, my city, my neighborhood? How is the virus tracking in my county? That’s the kind of information you only get from local news.”

At 6 p.m. in Cleveland, in May 2020, WKYC averaged a 5.5 share in viewers 25-54, up 20% from the 4.6 it did in May 2019. From March to May 2020, WNBC New York saw “some of the highest ratings since 2007” in early-evening news, according to Eric Lerner, president and general manager. 

WNJU New York president/GM Cristina Schwarz said viewers of the Telemundo station wanted translated updates on COVID-19 from civic officials in real time. “The connection was almost immediate, this desperation about, ‘What do I do, where do I go?’ ” she said. “There was an immediate need for information, a fear of the unknown, a desperate need for information.”

Following the COVID-19 outbreak was Floyd’s death at the hands of Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis in May and the ensuing protests around the country, then the November presidential election and the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol. “Any one of those would’ve been the story of a lifetime, and they all happened in less than 12 months,” WKYC president and GM Micki Byrnes said. “These were huge national stories, but they were also local because they affected everybody.”

Nonstop News

News networks of course see viewership spikes when giant news stories happen, and stations are no different. “This is when local newsgathering sources rise to the occasion,” Hague said. “Whether it’s Sept. 11 or a hurricane or a flood, that is when local stations become indispensable.”

Station newsrooms were energized by the blockbuster news events, and by viewers’ demand for a station’s take on them. “Internally, we felt like we had reignited our purpose,” Byrnes said. “We could literally save lives. We could improve lives. We could cut through the chaos overload of information and give people verified facts.”

Bobby Springer, president and GM of KHOU Houston, mentioned the news shifting from want-to-know to need-to-know for viewers across the past year-plus. “People returned to local media in a way that maybe they hadn’t done for a while,” he said. “Local journalists stepped up to the challenge.”

Byrnes described the WKYC newsroom as “re-energized” amidst the burst of global stories with local implications. “It sounds crazy,” she said, “but this is what we were born to do.”

Station-level fact-checking platforms, such as Tegna’s Verify and Hearst Television’s Get the Facts, proved essential for viewers in the era of misinformation. Verify was launched in 2015. Viewers submit questions, and the Verify team clarifies and verifies the query. In 2020, Verify traffic on Tegna sites increased more than 400%, prompting Tegna to launch a national standalone Verify brand in May, in addition to the local versions. 

“I can’t think of a better tool to be at your disposal,” Springer said. “This is what you’re hearing in your world, and here are four or five experts, and this is what they said. The simplicity of it, the transparency of it, it helped build trust early on.”

News in Normal Times

The challenge for stations is sustaining the ratings, and viewer interest, as the times become — knock on wood — more normal. Sampling of local content was sky high, and stations now hope they can keep the connection strong, especially with summer here, and ratings taking their usual dip. 

Stations are wholly focused on strengthening their digital offerings to better connect with the next generation of news viewers, as the Netflix generation may not age into local newscasts the way their parents did. “Many young people came to TV in the early days of the crisis,” Barbara Maushard, senior VP of news at Hearst TV, said. “If they get it from an app or a website, that’s great, as long as they get the critical information.”

At the station level, Glenn Haygood, WLKY Louisville president and GM, said younger users were consistently offering feedback on content related to the social-justice movement that was major news in the city, where the March 2020 police-involved shooting of Breonna Taylor led to weeks of protests. “The notion that the younger segment of the population is not getting information from local broadcasters is just not true,” he said. “Everyone certainly knew where to go.”

Stations have done a better job of monetizing digital traffic, making it a legitimate revenue stream, and not just something there to promote the TV product. “We’re interested in being on any platform that reaches folks,” Lerner said. “OTT, Peacock, any digital platform, audio only — we don’t care what platform it is. If there are eyeballs and listeners and viewers, we will be there.”

With that in mind, WNBC premiered a 10-minute weekday digital newscast in April, available on the station’s Roku and Apple TV channels, and through the station app. 

Stations are taking lessons learned during COVID and applying them to news product today. Lerner said WNBC viewers liked watching anchors delivering the news from home, feeling it made for a more genuine relationship between them and the station. “They weren’t fancy sets and the lighting wasn’t perfect — we just had a camera and a little backdrop,” he said. 

As a result, NBC 4 anchors rarely sit behind desks these days. “We came to the conclusion that the desk is a barrier between us and our viewers,” Lerner said. “Now they’re in front of the desk, they’re standing, they’re moving. It’s something new that has improved our newscasts.” 

Maushard said Hearst TV anchors broadcasting from a spare bedroom made for an at times more authentic presentation. Viewers were stuck at home, and reporters were as well. “We were a part of what’s happening, too,” she said. 

Local News Boom

Stations have been expanding news at a feverish pace since the torrid news cycle began in early 2020. Stations averaged 6.2 hours of news per weekday in 2020, reported the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), up 18 minutes from 2019. (Stations decreased news output on weekends last year.)

WAPT Jackson, Mississippi, introduced 9 p.m. news on its MeTV diginet in August. The CW outlet KNVA Austin, Texas, tacked on a 7-9 a.m. news in September. WNBC debuted 7 p.m. news in June. 

The 3 p.m. slot has emerged as a popular news destination with many people working remotely. WOIO Cleveland, KGO San Francisco and KRON San Francisco all have premiered 3 p.m. news, and WXIX Cincinnati does so in the fall. 

The content expansions go beyond news. WKYC has monthly special The Turning Point, dedicated to racial equality, and weekly public affairs program We the People. WATN Memphis had town halls titled “Uncomfortable Conversations” about racial relations and “Candid Conversations” about the COVID vaccine. 

Newsroom chiefs speak of a more nimble approach to news garnered during lockdown times, with news-gathering workarounds learned on digital platforms such as Zoom becoming part of everyday life in more normal times. Nearly 35% of stations reported an increase in local news in 2020, RTDNA reported, 7% more than in 2019, despite just 16% reporting a budget increase and 29% reporting a budget cut. 

The racial reckoning in particular has prompted stations to rethink how they connect with the Black community in their markets. ABC’s owned stations have an 11-person race and culture team, with one journalist on that beat at each station. That team worked on the Juneteenth special Our America: Black Freedom, which aired on the stations, Localish and Hulu last month.

Springer, general manager of Tegna’s KHOU Houston, said station journalists are increasingly asked to share their experiences in the minority neighborhoods, which turn into lessons for the entire newsroom. “We started having better conversations inside our organization that resulted in a better knowledge and better sense of empathy,” he said. 

Glenn Haygood is behind WLKY Louisville’s Marketing Awards Program, launched earlier this year and designed to help Black-owned businesses in Louisville. Nearly 100 businesses applied for the program and 10 were selected, the winners getting $100,000 grants. “The time was right for us to do something big and bold,” said Haygood. “There are so many ripple benefits we’re starting to see.”

Built for the Long Term

Initiatives such as WLKY’s marketing awards, station food banks and phone banks, and news content and specials, all make a compelling case as to why local broadcast should remain essential to viewers’ diets. The wild events of the past year-plus reminded viewers of the role strong stations play in their lives, and newsgatherers of their often critical job in a given market. 

It was no great surprise that WKYC Cleveland improved its 6 p.m. news share 20% from May 2019 to May 2020. Perhaps more surprising is the station seeing an additional 11% gain at 6 p.m. from May 2020 to May 2021. WKYC’s 6 a.m. share, meanwhile, is up a staggering 40% from May 2020. 

“All these challenges happened in a very short period of time, and local media stepped up in a way they hadn’t done before,” WKYC’s Byrnes said. “They had to. We had to. Because of that, I think we strengthened our connection to our communities.” 

WarnerMedia’s pledge to release the entire 2021 Warner Bros. film slate to HBO Max customers at no additional charge is expected to give a needed boost to the service and could smooth the path toward an all-streaming future for entertainment content. 

Warner Bros. will release all 17 films it had scheduled for a 2021 release, including potential blockbusters Dune and The Matrix 4, to HBO Max, the $14.99-per-month streaming service that has been somewhat of a disappointment since its May 27 launch. The news came just weeks after the media conglomerate said it would release the tentpole movie Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously on Dec. 25. Just like the Wonder Woman release, the 2021 slate will be available both in theaters and on HBO Max for 30 days, reverting to theatrical-only distribution after that period.

The studio has said the day-and-date changes will only be for one year — fueled in part by COVID-19, which has forced thousands of movie theaters across the country to close their doors. Many, though, believe it will be increasingly difficult to return that genie to the bottle.

Most in the industry had predicted this day was coming for years. Theatrical windows have been consistently shrinking, from the years or several months between theatrical and pay TV release in the 1980s to mere weeks in the past few years. The pandemic, which since March has forced theater closures and left many Americans working from home, and the growth of direct-to-consumer services further sped things up.

ALSO READ: HBO Max, Roku Finally Reach Distribution Deal

Is this a sea change for the content industry or simply a one-off event to supplement box-office revenue decimated by the pandemic? Here are five things you should know about WarnerMedia’s new strategy.

1. This is about platforms, not box office. WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, about seven months into the job, has been consistent with his message. In  blog posts, memos to employees and interviews since unveiling the new strategy Dec. 3, Kilar has tried hard to drive home the main point of the changes: It’s all about the platform. 

For WarnerMedia, HBO Max is clearly the platform of choice.

And it can’t come too soon. AT&T entered the content distribution fray in 2015 with its purchase of DirecTV and spent the next several years dismantling the satellite-TV giant in favor of online platforms. With DirecTV a shell of its former self —  it has lost about 6.3 million customers since Q3 2018 and is currently on the sales block — AT&T has gone all-in with the launch of HBO Max.

At the UBS Global TMT Virtual Conference Dec. 8, AT&T CEO John Stankey said the decision to eliminate theatrical windows was made in part because of the pandemic, which has decimated box-office opportunities, and partly to lessen the advantage to its competitors. 

Stankey spoke of other creators that opted to distribute their content on “alternate platforms” like streaming, saying that wasn’t a prudent path for AT&T. 

“Giving those people that are some of your most significant competitors additional arms is probably not the most intelligent way to deal with that content,” he said.

Some analysts praised the decision, adding that it was a long time coming.

“WarnerMedia’s bold move should make HBO Max a must-have streaming service in 2021, driving subscribers and activations (nearly half of HBO Max subs are still using the old HBO-only product) and improve the overall price/value relationship of HBO Max,” Rich Greenfield, general partner at LightShed Ventures, said in a blog post, adding that the decision should help with the glaring sticking point of failing to land carriage on streaming device leader Roku. “[It’s] hard to imagine how [the] WarnerMedia move does not help get a Roku deal done by Christmas Day, when Wonder Woman hits HBO Max.” [Note: WarnerMedia reached a deal for HBO Max distribution on Roku on Dec. 16.]

Others have cautioned WarnerMedia is opening a Pandora’s box that it will find difficult, if not impossible, to close. 

MoffettNathanson principal and senior media analyst Craig Moffett said in a research note that WarnerMedia is relying too much on the hope that HBO Max will jumpstart sagging subscriber numbers and is sacrificing lucrative licensing fees for a short-term boost.

Despite the hype, and tentpole superhero films that sell billions of dollars in tickets, most theatrical movies don’t make money at the box office. Movie accounting is famously complicated, but most studios take most of their expenses up front, monetizing that content first through home video sales, then the Pay 1 window (premium services such as HBO, Showtime and Starz) and then through other syndication windows. 

“While studios have been pressuring distributors to shrink the theatrical windows for some time, WarnerMedia is the first to truly blow up the model by skipping an exclusive theatrical window altogether,” Moffett wrote. “And the Pay 1 window, which is now the HBO Max release, no longer generates cash; instead it merely shifts content between WarnerMedia segments.”

WarnerMedia is well aware of the risks. But even dating back to his early days at Hulu — he co-founded the streaming pioneer in 2007 — Kilar has been a big booster of eliminating windows. At Hulu, he battled with content partners about releasing shows on the service. Disney and Fox were particular nemeses at the time, fearing that too much online video would encourage consumers to drop their pay TV subscriptions. Those spats seem quaint given today’s streaming climate.

2. So far, other studios aren’t following suit, but are keeping the door open. The Walt Disney Co. isn’t taking the window-smashing bait just yet. It plans to release much-anticipated animated films Raja and The Last Dragon in theaters and via premium access on Disney Plus on the same day, but will continue with tradition by releasing most of its studio product in theaters first. Disney executives, though, said that approach could change if consumer habits warrant it. 

“We had $13 billion of box office last year, and that’s obviously not something to sneeze at,” Disney CEO Bob Chapek said at the company’s Dec. 10 Investor Day. “And we know, as The Walt Disney Company, that we build those franchises through the theatrical exhibition window.”

Disney has experimented with premium VOD with Mulan, giving Disney Plus subscribers the opportunity to see the movie before it was in theaters (for $30). In July, Disney released the movie version of Broadway hit Hamilton to Disney Plus customers exclusively, a move that was said to significantly boost subscriptions.   

So far, no other studios have followed suit, either. At the UBS conference on Dec. 8, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said although studios have left some money on the table by not addressing consumers who can’t get out to theaters, it’s sticking to theatrical releases primarily and offering some first-run movie content via premium VOD. Still, he said he sees any shrinking of theatrical windows as a good sign for the industry. 

“Anything that, in my opinion, collapses windows is going to add value to the whole business,” Shell said, adding he believes theaters will fare well over the long term. But he also said NBCUniversal looks at movies as “events.” That characteristic, being the latest box-office winner, can drive a film’s overall success. 

“As a PR move, it’s interesting because you’ve taken away what’s called earned media, where instead of buying ads you’ve become newsworthy,” Karen North, a clinical professor of communication specializing in social media and psychology at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication, said. “Films become newsworthy because of their performance on opening weekend and the stories that come from their performance opening weekend can propel a movie to success.”

Barclays Research media analyst Kannan Venkateshwar doesn’t see other studios going full bore into day-and-date VOD releases.  

ALSO READ: Paramount and Amazon Reach $125 Million Deal to Shift ‘Coming 2 America’ to Streaming

“It is tough for us to see, for instance, a franchise like Iron Man or Black Panther becoming as big of a franchise if it was never to be released in a theater,” Venkateshwar wrote. “The main driver of this in our opinion is the fact that when a movie is released in a theater, that particular piece of content has a window of exclusive marketing and awareness without any clutter that is almost impossible to generate in any other distribution channel.”

Gary Pearl, CEO of Aquarius Content, which produces TV and feature films and currently is in production on another feature — Gypsy Moon with Lena Headey and Sam Worthington —  said a tentpole movie like Matrix 4 being released as part of a streaming lineup, instead of only in theaters, can become diminished in the eyes of viewers.  

“[If] Matrix goes to TV first, it’s not going to be Matrix, it’s going to be a movie we kind of remember, like Brian’s Song,” Pearl said.

North didn’t believe that other studios would follow Warner Bros. blindly, mainly because eliminating the windows would effectively kill the theater business. And she believes that despite the appeal of staying at home and watching a first-run movie on the couch, the target audience for most pictures — young movie-goers — will want to get out of the house once the pandemic subsides. 

Shell believes that, too. At the UBS conference, he said he expects people to flock to movie theaters, restaurants and the like when it is safe to gather again. 

“[T]here’s going to be a bit like the roaring twenties effect, where you’re not going to want to be at home anymore, at least for a period of time,” Shell said. “The idea of sitting at home in your apartment on a Friday night watching Netflix is going to be less appealing than it was before this. And I think people are going to want to leave their house, whether it’s to go to a sporting event or a concert or a restaurant, or hopefully a theme park, and certainly to the movie theaters. So I actually think movie theaters are going to be just fine, and that’s where we want our movies to be seen.” 

3. HBO Max has been a disappointment, but remains key to WarnerMedia’s ongoing content strategy. AT&T launched HBO Max to much fanfare but more than a little confusion. With multiple HBO brands — the HBO premium linear channel, streaming service HBO Now and online VOD companion HBO Go — some customers were a bit confused as to what they were getting and how they were getting it. 

HBO Max was slow out of the gate. On its launch day, about 90,000 people downloaded its app, compared to 10 million for Disney Plus at its launch. To date, about 12.6 million customers have authenticated the service. That is a big improvement over just a few months, as HBO Max had 8.6 million authenticated customers at the end of Q3. And the milestone particularly excited Stankey, who said at UBS on Dec. 8 the surge was “an incredible pace by traditional standards of people authenticating and using the product and being part of it.” 

Even with those gains, though, HBO Max is still far behind Disney Plus, with 86.8 million global subscribers. Even NBCUniversal’s ad-supported Peacock service has about 26 million customers. 

Confusing the matter even more is that about 25 million of HBO’s 38 million linear  customers globally have access to HBO Max, and less than half of those have activated the service. Perhaps smashing the windows will give the service a needed boost, but there is a question as to how long they would stay.

4. More subs, more money. According to Moffett, WarnerMedia stands to lose about $1.2 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in 2021 by bypassing theatrical-only release. To make up the difference, Moffett estimated HBO Max would need to add at least 8.4 million new subscribers annually. The 4 million additions in the first two months of Q4 looked to be helping hit that goal.

Even there, though, there is some confusion. Stankey didn’t say if the 4 million additions were new to HBO Max or linear subscribers who authenticated the service. Moffett said his estimates require that the 8.4 million additional subscribers annually be entirely new to HBO. 

Moffett said in an email message that he believes HBO Max’s biggest problem has been its price. At $14.99 per month, equivalent to an HBO premium subscription, HBO Max is about twice that of Disney Plus, which went up by $1 per month to $7.99 on Dec. 10. 

“Disney’s strategy was to start with a very low price in order to gain momentum,” Moffett said in the email. “They’ve earned a price increase, but even now, it will only be a little more than half the price of HBO Max.”

In a research note, Barclays’ Venkateshwar said he believes the higher price for HBO Max is beneficial. He estimates about 7 million incremental new customers annually would offset the lost box office revenue.

Making HBO Max more compelling also could help AT&T’s wireless business, Venkateshwar said, further reducing the number of needed streaming subscribers. 

“The ability to reduce churn in this high margin business due to better value at HBO Max, which is bundled with higher-end wireless plans, also lowers breakeven thresholds further,” he wrote. “In some ways, this could effectively be the first instance of the true value proposition of vertical integration being realized if AT&T is indeed successful in changing the growth trajectory of HBO Max.”

Meanwhile, Disney Plus continues to break records. It added 13 million customers since September, with a total of 86.8 million subscribers as of Dec. 10. At the Dec. 10 Investor Day, Disney executives rolled out a red carpet of 2021 releases for Disney Plus: 10 new Marvel series; 10 new Star Wars series; 15 series from Disney, Disney Animation and Pixar and 15 features from Disney, Disney Animation and Pixar. Disney pledged to add more than 100 titles each year to the streaming service and increased the content budget, claiming it will spend between $8 billion and $9 billion domestically on content ($14-$16 billion across Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus) in 2024. HBO Max spends about $4 billion per year on content.

Disney also upped the guidance for Disney Plus, saying the goal is for the streaming service to have between 230 million and 260 million global subscribers by 2024. When it launched a little more than a year ago, the goal was for 60 million to 90 million customers by 2024. WarnerMedia has previously targeted 50 million customers for HBO Max by 2025.

5. Eliminating windows could damage relationships with artists. Filmmaker Christopher Nolan, the creative force behind such blockbusters as The Dark Knight, Inception and Dunkirk, blasted the day-and-date strategy, telling The Hollywood Reporter that filmmakers were blindsided, thinking they were working for the best movie studio (Warner Bros.) but finding instead they were employed by “the worst streaming service” (HBO Max). 

Nolan said Warner Bros. was “dismantling” an incredibly efficient machine for getting filmmakers’ work out to the public, and said WarnerMedia doesn’t “understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.”

Other filmmakers chimed in. Dune director Denis Villeneuve told Variety that AT&T “hijacked” Warner Bros. and has no love for film or its audience. He said the digital distribution moves could lead to widespread piracy.

“Warner Bros.’ decision means Dune won’t have the chance to perform financially in order to be viable and piracy will ultimately triumph,” Villenueve told Variety. “Warner Bros. might just have killed the Dune franchise. This one is for the fans. AT&T’s John Stankey said that the streaming horse left the barn. In truth, the horse left the barn for the slaughterhouse.”

Warner Bros. and HBO have long reputations for being artist-friendly. In one fell swoop, AT&T may have irreparably damaged what has taken years to build.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that bringing blockbuster movies to the platform day and date will drive subscriptions,” Moffett said in an email message. “But at what cost? It’s not just a matter of lost box office. It is also at the cost of damaged relationships with the talent community. Those relationships will be hard to rebuild.”

Pearl, who has produced TV programs and movies, said that from a pure subscription standpoint, the no-window strategy makes sense in that it will likely help WarnerMedia boost HBO Max customers in the short term. But just having more content isn’t enough.

“The problem is the way they’ve done this is, it ignores the talent,” Pearl said. “And you say you’re not in the content business, but if you don’t support talent in the right way, you don’t have anything you want to see. You have a library.” 

Broadcasting + Cable's Kent Gibbons and Michael Malone talk about long-running shows, such as Supernatural and Grey's Anatomy, Netflix's The Queen's Gambit, Hulu's A Teacher and CBS's The Price Is Right.

GSN will continue to mine the competition/game show genre with renewals of two series, Snap Decision and Cover Story, as well as the greenlighting of two other shows, the network announced Monday.

The David Alan Grier-hosted Snap Decision, in which contestants test their preconceptions, first impressions and gut instincts, will return for a second season, said network officials.  

A second freshman series, Cover Story, also has been renewed after launching in January. The series of documentary specials looks at the fascinating personalities, memorable moments and outrageous scandals in and around the most popular games shows of all time, the network said.

The series join returning series Divided and Winsanity on GSN's programming lineup.

In addition, the network has greenlit two new shows, including America Says, an in-studio game where two teams of friends and family look to fill in the blanks to match survey responses that cover every topic under the sun; and Caroline & Friends, a comedic, family-friendly series hosted by Caroline Rhea (Sabrina The Teenage Witch) that showcases videos from around the web.

Other shows in development include Catch My Bluff, Movin’ Money and Mall Madness.

"GSN is the home for engaging game show programming that attracts high-value consumers looking for a family environment filled with winning and fun,” said Fran Shea, executive vice president, programming and marketing for GSN, in a statement. “Developing and producing new strip programming provides our loyal audience with a viewing destination they’ve come to expect and feel comfortable with, as GSN is an essential part of their daily routine.”