Markets

Back at the hotel in Terre Haute, I turned the TV on to the Today show as I was packing my stuff for the drive back to Roseholme Cottage.

This meant that I got some exposure to news programming from the local NBC affiliate, WTWO.

Wow.

I'm kinda spoiled because, not only is Indy a Top 25* broadcasting market, but the quality of newscasts is driven by competition in the city. There are affiliates of all four networks plus one independent that each run a newsroom and compete for the local news eyeballs. As a result, the better stations here have news production values as good as I've seen from some stations in much bigger markets, like Atlanta or DFW.

By contrast, WTWO this morning looked like it was being broadcast by a particularly on-the-ball high school A/V club.

Among the most pathos-ridden figures at the tiny market stations are the Silver-Haired Newsreaders With Gravitas who realize that they've reached the Silver-Haired Newsreader With Gravitas phase of their careers without ever being called up to the show. They're like the "Crash" Davises of broadcast journalism.

*Actually, 2016-2017 Nielsen data has us at #27.