SportsCentral as Winner or Loser? Centralcasting as Strategy for Efficient Local Sportscast Production

Abstract

The amount of time dedicated to sports coverage in local news has decreased substantially in recent years. In fact, some networks have eliminated traditional sports segments or outsourced them to national organizations. The now defunct Sinclair Broadcast Group’s SportsCentral represented a cost-efficient way to produce local sports segments in multiple media markets, and this study sought to understand how SportsCentral broadcasts compared with traditional broadcasts in 3 markets. An analysis of SportsCentral segments over a 17-month period in the Birmingham, AL; Oklahoma City; and Tampa–St. Petersburg markets showed that traditional sportscasts provided more local sports coverage than shows airing SportsCentral. While relying more heavily on satellite-generated content, sportscasts using SportsCentral had a wider variety of stories and aired more sports feature stories and franchises than the traditional sportscast. However, local newscasts found ways to integrate sports coverage into the news broadcast to cover late-breaking or important local stories.

Remote Delivery of Local TV News

“…The study found statistically significant differences between remotely delivered (News-Central) and locally produced newscasts on story location, with local newscasts carrying significantly more local stories and significantly fewer national/international stories. Mills and Daniels (2009) examined Sinclair's SportsCentral sportscasts and found they carried significantly fewer local stories than local station sportscasts within the same markets. Yet Sinclair's is not the only foray into remote delivery of local TV news.…”

“…The first study (2007) detailed such incidents as the same remotely delivered newscast airing for hours on end, as well as remote newscasts emphasizing conflict stories over a major local celebration and missing major local stories such as a nearby forest fire. The second study (2010) included a content analysis of locally and remotely produced newscasts, with findings similar to Daniels (2008) and Mills and Daniels (2009): Many more local stories on locally produced newscasts, many more national and international stories on remotely produced programs. I later interviewed news workers involved with outsourcing, who described the challenges of producing newscasts for communities with which they were unfamiliar or had never visited (Hood, 2011).…”