Competition and the allocation of resources for local television news

Theoretical and Practical Considerations in Operationalizing Newspaper and Television News Competition

“…However, a small homogeneous sample used this measure and found no such relation (Lacy, Fico, & Simon, 1989). Use of this measure with local broadcast news has found a relation between competition and staff size and budget (Lacy, Atwater, & Qin, 1989) and between competition and hours of news and size of staff (Powers, 1993).…”

“…The disadvantage is that it may not work well with monopolistic competition and oligopolies of more than three. For example, when the measure was used with local television news competition (Lacy, Atwater, & Qin, 1989), the difference between the particular station's market share and the market share of the leading station was the basis of the index. A further disadvantage is that the closest competitor in market share may not be the closest competitor in product characteristics.…”

In Step at the Top? Optimism, Efficacy, and Orientation Among Local Television News Managers

“…Much of the literature reviewed earlier pointed to an effect of market size on news values (proximity, etc.) and news content (Buckalew, 1969(Buckalew, , 1970Lacy et al, 1988;Litman & Bridges, 1986;Napoli & Yan, 2007). However, Coulson et al (2001) and later Riffe and Abdenour (2015), however, used market size to explore beliefs among city hall reporters that their work.…”

“…This also creates a resource discrepancy (e.g., in advertising-based revenue) among stations licensed in large markets and those licensed in smaller markets. In addition, larger markets are likely to have more competing licensed television stations that produce news, and research on competition in media markets has demonstrated that more competition can lead to more spending on news departments (Lacy, Atwater, & Qin, 1988;Litman & Bridges, 1986;Napoli & Yan, 2007). This discrepancy inspired a great deal of research, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, on the differences in news content in different markets.…”

Television Reporters' Perceptions of How Television and Newspaper Competition Affects City Hall Coverage

“…Local television news research has shown a relationship between competition and financial commitment in the form of greater expenditures on local news (Busterna, 1980), more minutes of local news (Busterna, 1988), more full-time staff and bigger newsroom budgets (Lacy, Atwater, & Qin, 1989), acquisition of satellite news-gathering vehicles (Lacy, Atwater, Qin, & Powers, 1988), and more resources used to assemble stories on local news programs (Lacy & Bernstein, 1992).…”