Consolidation City – Local News Initiative

Consolidation City  Local News Initiative

The consolidation in local TV news that’s remaking news ecosystems across the country is on stark display in Indianapolis. Not that long ago, Indiana’s capital city was a dense hub for news. From newspapers to TV to radio, there was no shortage of ways to find out what was happening around town. “When I was at the Star, I always thought we had plenty of healthy competition,” said Karen Ferguson Fuson, who was publisher of the Indianapolis Star in the early 2010s. “I never thought we could rest on our laurels, that we had the [market] share that we wanted.” Terry Heifetz, a senior lecturer at Ball State University in nearby Muncie, Indiana, echoed that sentiment, having spent years as a producer for WISH-TV and WRTV in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

“There were four viable [TV] newsrooms, [two] print newsrooms … and also a couple of good radio stations covering news,” he said. “So, a very healthy market. And competitive.” Consolidation, downsizing and massive disruption of local news business models have changed that in just a few years. When it comes to local TV news, Indianapolis symbolizes the consolidation of newsrooms nationally that has been underway for decades but has vastly accelerated in recent years. Across the country, much as print newspapers have shrunk and shuttered as digital