Why Consolidation in Local TV is Bad for Consumers and Local News—and About to Get Much Worse
- Kressin Powers
- Dec 4, 2025
- 1 min read
Kressin Powers has prepared a comprehensive white paper entitled “From Local Stations to Nationwide Conglomerates: The High Cost of TV Mega-Mergers” analyzing how consolidation by and among local TV stations has led to higher prices for consumers—primarily stemming from increased retransmission fees—and an ongoing decline in local TV newsrooms.
The paper details how the weakening of local and national ownership rules has led to the consolidation of the local broadcast industry into a handful of mega-firms (poised to consolidate from five to three mega-station group conglomerates). This consolidation has resulted in increased station group concentration at the local and national levels, rising prices, and a decline in the number and quality of local news broadcasts. That decline comes with less diversity of viewpoints in these broadcasts and depressed employment in the local broadcast industry. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations designed to restore and strengthen TV ownership rules and limit further increases in retransmission fees.
Consolidation will increase retransmission fees and generally kill most local news gathering. Once retransmission fees exceeded local advertising revenue the incentive to cater to an OTA audience also disappears. OTA doesn't pay retransmission fees so I'd venture local stations (who are usually big merged conglomerates) have little incentive since the guy at home with an antenna is not sending the station money.