Another One Bites the Dust

This article telling about another local television station dropping local sports (this time in Las Vegas) is not really surprising. The same thing has been happening at other stations for the past several years. It's even more pronounced when the economy is bad, as stations look to squeeze every penny out of local newscasts.

A lot of the blame lies with local sportscasters, many of whom are still creating sportscasts right from the 1970s with lots of national highlights. "I haven't broken it down to say sports is running the audience off," says news director Ron Comings of KLAS-TV (not the Vegas station to dump sports), "but some local sportscasters haven't adapted to the change in the media environment and turned enough attention to local sports, which won't be seen anywhere else."

Dr. Mary Lou Sheffer of Southern Mississippi and I have done some scholarly research in this area. In addition to what's online we can email you other papers if you are interested.