In local TV, everybody gets paid before the newsroom

On Aug. 6, the FCC eliminated the 39% national ownership cap, and the industry read it as a story about who gets to own the stations. The better question is who gets the dollar a station earns. Three parties reach it before the newsroom does.

Start with the networks. In June, counsel for all four affiliate associations, speaking for more than 700 stations, told the commission that affiliation fees now often represent the majority of a station’s revenue, and that in small and midsize markets those fees consume all of, or more than, a station’s entire retransmission consent revenue. Many affiliates are upside down. They pay the network out of local advertising, which is to say out of the newsroom.

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