Media Ownership Regulations and Local News Programming on Broadcast Television: An Empirical Analysis

Tell It Not in Harrisburg, Publish It Not in the Streets of Tampa

“…In addition, the media ownership debate has itself become especially newsworthy, with mounting evidence that media consolidation has been associated with a degradation of local and community news coverage. Ownership of stations by media conglomerates has been linked to a considerable decrease in the amount of televised local public affairs programming (Yan and Napoli, 2004) as well as local news programming (Napoli and Yan, 2007). With television remaining the main source of news for more than 69 percent of Americans, and with 52 percent of Americans still regularly watching local televised news (Pew, 2008), the deleterious effects of consolidation are very real.…”

Market Competition, Station Ownership, and Local Public Affairs Programming on Broadcast Television

“…Much of the evidence in support of this assumption is, at this point, primarily anecdotal (see FCC, 1999c), though an econometric analysis prepared for Sinclair Broadcasting found that common ownership led to a small increase in the probability that a station would cover local news at all, but there was no statistically significant difference in terms of the amount of news provided (Crandall, 2003). More recent research, however, found a negative relationship between duopoly ownership and local news provision (Napoli & Yan, in press).…”

“…To the extent, however, that the focus of this study is on local programming, it is questionable whether such economies of scale can be achieved across stations in different markets, when the programming at issue is being produced exclusively for a single local market. This may explain why, up to this point, there has been relatively little consistent evidence of a meaningful relationship between station group ownership or station group size and the provision of informational programming (Napoli, 2002, 2004; Napoli & Yan, in press; Spavins et al, 2002; Wirth & Wollert, 1979).…”

An Examination of Terrestrial and Broadcasting Satellite Broadcasters' Programming by Type: What Factors Influence Program Diversity in the Multi-channel Era?

“…Theoretical studies Steiner (1952), Beebe (1977), Spence and Owen (1975), Wildman and Owen (1985), Gal-Or and Dukes (2003), Gabszewicz et al (2004), Anderson and Coate (2005) Empirical studies Vertical diversity Dominick and Pearce (1976), Litman (1979), Lin (1995), Napoli (1997), Einstein (2004aEinstein ( , 2004b) Horizontal diversity Einstein (2004aEinstein ( , 2004b With regard to empirical studies that investigate the relationship between the ownership rule and program diversity, Napoli and Yan (2007) and Yan and Park (2009) examined the impact of relaxation of the ownership rule on the programming of local television broadcasters in the United States. Berry and Waldfogel (2001) investigated the impact of relaxation of the ownership rule on radio programming in the United States, stating that program diversity increased after relaxation of the ownership rule, although the market concentration did also.…”