Reinventing Local TV News

Breaking news!: We are unveiling findings from our national study on reinventing local TV News

After nearly two years of work, we are today unveiling the results of our national study of news consumers and our experiments in remixing local TV news segments. 

The results are fascinating, and we think there are many actionable takeaways for newsrooms trying to improve the quality of their storytelling. 

The report itself, which is co-published with Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, can be found here. You can also see a write-up in Poynter.

Here’s our video summary of the report:

The findings are based on results from a national survey panel of 613 persons, average age 34, across six diverse media markets that involved A/B testing of traditional and remixed story segments. The stories we remixed all came originally from leading TV stations. 

In the report, we explain how the strategic use of innovative storytelling elements — everything from incorporating different animation and sound elements to providing more context and background on stories — may resonate powerfully, allowing local television news outlets to attract new audiences.

We’d like to thank the Stanton Foundation again for generously supporting this research. 

We’ll write more soon at Storybench about our findings and their implications. 

Mike Beaudet and John Wihbey
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