A friend of mine is a producer in a fairly large market. Recently, we talked about the tv business, and where we thought it might be headed, especially concerning local sports. He told me that at his station, they were going with only one sports anchor.

While at first this really surprised me, as we talked a little more, it made sense. As it turns out, a few weeks back, the sports anchor at this station had to take a week off, so for that week’s shows, the station did not even provide a sportscast.

While you may think that viewers were upset, think again. Not one person called the station to complain.

More than anything this story makes me sad. I have a few friends that are trying to carve out a niche for themselves as local sportscasters, and they are all very talented. My biggest fear for them though is that more and more, local sportscasters are becoming a thing of the past.

I don’t know that many people who tune into a local newscast anymore, let alone to watch the sportscasters do their thing. Ten years ago, I would always tune into the local station to see what Ryan Baker had to say. He was my favorite local sportscaster and I always thought he did a good job.

Two things have changed though, especially in the last decade. First, ESPN has gotten enormous. SportsCenter is at the heart of everything, but ESPN has so many different platforms to broadcast its programming that they have basically cornered the market.

Secondly, the inception of the Internet has forever changed the way people can get their news and sports. In an instant, people can read, watch, or listen to whatever they want. That’s why most people aren’t waiting to watch the local sportscast everynight.

So why not just get rid of them alltogether? I disagree with that idea. I still believe that local sportscasts serve a purpose. I’m not sure if sports need to be on every night though. I think there are days when you could just go without them. However, there are plenty of days when they are needed.

Every Friday night in the fall, I would argue that local sportscasters play the most important role at a station. That’s because they are in charge of putting together the highlights of all the high school football games. All kinds of people tune in on Friday nights to see their child, or friend, play on tv.

The thing is, aside from high school sports coverage, and the occasional local story, there isn’t much a local sportscast can offer, that viewers/readers can’t get off the Internet, or from ESPN.

As time wears on, you’re not going to see as much sports on the local telecasts. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the day, some time soon, when local stations start sending news anchors out to cover sporting events.

Tags: sports, Television

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 9:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.