Segmenting Broadcast News Audiences in the New Media Environment

Abstract

Benefit segmentation suggests target audiences for local newscasts. Prior 1960, local television news was produced as a public service. News production was viewed principally as a way of complying with the public interest provisions contained in the Communications Act of 1934.' But events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the war in Vietnam and the civil rights movement provided television with the opportunity offer vivid pictorial accounts of the events of the day. Dramatic film of historic events enabled television garner increasingly larger audiences. Station management responded by investing more money in local news attract more viewers and improve news ratings. As ratings climbed, time allocated for news programming increased. By 1980, news programming accounted for 27% of all programming.2 News staff sizes have grown proportionately over the years. The median staff size for a station in the top 25 markets is now 68.' More independent stations have begun produce news. In 1986, only 37% of the independent stations (those not affiliated with ABC, NBC or CBS) produced local news. By 1987, the figure had increased 49%-a 13% increase in just one year.4 News has become a major profit center at local stations. Successful news programs are capable of producing as much as 50% of the overall revenue at local television stations.5 These trends suggest that local news will continue play an important economic role at stations for the foreseeable future. However, increased competition for the viewing public in an increasingly congested marketplace may prompt some broadcasters consider developing program formats suited audience segments instead of the mass market.6 Rather than duplicating the news program formats already offered, some local stations might consider experimenting with differentiated newscasts produced for sub-populations of the overall news market. New independent station or network-affiliated stations with poor ratings would seem be the most likely candidates consider such a strategy. This article will introduce a marketing technique which may be useful in terms of identifying news audience segments. The strategy, characterized in the marketing literature as benefit-based segmentation,7 is capable of sorting consumers into discrete segments interested in similar salient product attributes, or benefits. This notion of identifying audience segments may be logical in the new media environment. With cable penetration at 50% and network viewing on the decline certain stations may be in an ideal position take advantage of the fragmentation being created by the new media.8 Literature Review Schramm wrote that news consumption is guided by either reality motives, which have delayed rewards, or pleasure motives, which have immediate rewards.9 More than three decades later, Rubin concluded that two types of television viewers exist-those who use it to relieve boredom and for (pleasure motives) and those who use it to seek and learn (reality motives).10 Both typologies embrace critical components of what has emerged in the communications literature as the media and perspective.11 Lasswell's delineation of the communication functions provides the foundation upon which much of the uses and gratifications approach has been constructed.12 A variety of communication scholars have offered variations on Lasswell's conceptualization.13 For example, Blumler suggests people use media satisfy three central needs:14 1) Cognitive needs such as acquisition, 2) Diversion and entertainment needs and 3) Personal identity and Virtually all media gratification typologies suggest that people use media for information gain and be entertained. Most also include a component relating self-identity or reinforcement. But Stephenson observed in 1967 that news-seeking gratifications are a combination of these countervaling forces-people are not drawn exclusively by a single gratification. …