Has TV as we know it changed forever? Are local TV stations facing a reality that they can no longer ignore? As Ryan Welton says in his article, “Linear TV no longer aligns with anything we do as human adults.” And the only way forward seems to be accepting and adapting to the reality/
Or is it?
Let’s get things straight: people haven’t stopped caring about local news. Gen Z, despite common belief, does not consume any less news; they’re just engaging with it differently. According to a 2024 Oliver Wyman study, there are several misconceptions about so-called ‘Zoomers’: that young audiences don’t care about news, only consume it on social media, don’t trust traditional news brands, and are unwilling to pay for quality journalism.
But what does the reality actually show?
Research shows that Gen Z actively follows news, often across multiple platforms, values credible reporting, and is open to paying when the content feels relevant to them, accessible, and tailored to their habits.
So what is the challenge for broadcasters? The difficulty for news organizations isn’t necessarily declining interest. It’s adapting workflows and formats for multi-channel distribution to meet audiences where they actually are. Broadcast-first workflows simply don’t work anymore. Ryan Welton mentions a recent Nieman Lab report that warns: “Your TV station is on fire!”, highlighting that local stations must prioritize digital immediately or risk becoming irrelevant.
Surely, the warning is valid. But it also raises a deeper question that often gets overlooked:
Even if newsrooms want to go digital-first, do their workflows actually allow it?
Are audiences vanishing?
Simply put, no, they aren’t. But they are now more scattered than ever. And trying to catch them all with what used to work is like showing up for a party after everyone has already left.
The truth is that younger audiences are consuming media in different ways. They will not be gathering around a TV at 6 p.m. to watch local news with their families. And while news stations continue their linear, one-size-fits-all approach, Gen Z is scrolling, searching, watching clips on their phones, and reading news somewhere in between memes and funny cat videos.
But that doesn’t mean they want local news any less than other generations. It means they want it where they are.
The challenge? One story now needs to exist in multiple shapes: a TV segment, a short social clip, a headline and summary for apps, an article, and maybe a follow-up or explainer later.
And that’s all before dinner.
Digital-first approach isn’t just a strategy problem, it’s a workflow problem
So if broadcasters already know what they need to do to reach younger audiences, why aren’t they doing it?
The problem isn’t motivation. It’s capacity.
Many local stations are already stretched thin, with their journalists posting them on social media, recording podcasts and visual content, updating websites – essentially repackaging content for multiple platforms, and all that on top of their traditional tasks.
Why does this happen? Tight budgets, small teams, and workflows that were designed for a broadcast-first world.
The Nieman Lab report suggests hiring a “Digital Content Creator” to help bridge this gap. But let’s face it: adding a single role will not fix a more fundamental, structural issue. One person simply cannot scale digital output if the rest of the newsroom is still operating on old terms. Too much manual work, copy-pasting, and no interconnected tools. These are the culprits. And the only way to deal with those is to rethink the workflows. Broadcasters don’t need to reinvent the wheel. They just need an extra gear, because the wheel already turns, but without the right tools, it can’t keep up with the pace of today’s news.
The hidden cost of manual workflows in newsrooms
As mentioned above, many local newsrooms still rely on manual work to produce content: copy-pasting between tools, rebuilding stories for different platforms, managing disconnected systems, and deploying highly technical operators to make everything run.
These workflows are slow, error-prone, and, most importantly, they are costly. And we mean, very costly. This problem makes it nearly impossible to experiment at scale for these local stations.
When journalists spend more time managing tools than writing stories, everything suffers – from digital output to work overload. And when stations don’t have stable workflows, their teams don’t want to take any extra risks, sticking to what they know instead of trying new formats or platforms.
If local news is to survive and stay relevant, something has to change, not just in terms of editorial strategy, but day-to-day operations need to be adapted, too.
From broadcast-first to story-first
What sets a modern newsroom apart from a more traditional one? It’s not always the latest tech. It’s their approach to it. Modern newsrooms that manage to keep up with growing industry and audience’s demands are those that move away from broadcast-first toward story-centric production.
Instead of building a story around a 6 p.m. show as a starting point and repurposing it from there, those stations start from the story itself, asking questions: What is this story? Who is it for? Where should it live? How many ways can we tell it? A single idea can then move to broadcast, web, social, and streaming, shaped appropriately for each audience.
What does this approach unlock? Scale. But only if journalists have appropriate tools which support it. You can’t expect journalists to produce even more content for more platforms without providing them with the right tools. That’s not innovation. That’s burnout.
Story-centric production requires systems that keep context, sources, and assets connected as stories evolve. It requires real-time collaboration. And it requires automation to remove repetitive technical work from the process.
One workflow to reach audiences wherever they are
Building workflows that support journalists is essential in today’s reality. And Cuez is designed for exactly this reality.
Instead of forcing teams to work around legacy systems, Cuez brings story creation, rundown management, and studio automation into one connected, cloud-based workflow. Stories start from an idea, and not a format. In Cuez, a news piece is a living object that updates as the story evolves, across all platforms, allowing journalists to pull data from any source and publish it on any channel, all within one interconnected flow.
Automation handles the technical complexity behind the scenes, so producers and journalists can focus on storytelling rather than button-pushing. Real-time collaboration replaces manual handoffs. And integrations with industry’s best systems and tools mean stations don’t have to replace and rework their workflows overnight.
Cuez is the tool the industry has been asking for. With it, newsrooms can move faster, experiment more, and reach audiences wherever they actually are, without extra heavy costs and chaos.
The takeaway
So, are local TV stations actually “on fire” because journalists don’t care, or Gen Z doesn’t value local news anymore? No. Broadcasters are under pressure because they are trying to solve a modern problem with outdated solutions.
The path forward isn’t just digital-first thinking. It isn’t blaming the younger generation for being uninterested in the news. It’s a structural workflow change from within the stations themselves. And opting for the tools that allow them to do so, of course.
Ecaterina Caprari
Content Marketeer