It’s Time for Local Television News to Change

Enter your number to get our free mobile app

It seems like there are a thousand local radio stations in Billings, so you have a lot of choices of who and what to listen to. Then consider all of the options on satellite radio, podcasts, and all the types of music that people are streaming.

But I was watching some local television news over the weekend. We only have two options for our local news. I've been told that is because television stations are significantly more expensive to run than radio stations.

Let's say that it's completely up to me how the news programming is going to look. I'd start by having two main anchors. Each of those two will tell the different political sides of top stories. It would be similar to a presidential debate. Each anchor gets 30 seconds to put in their particular partied perspective. No name-calling or unpleasantness. Just the facts.

Weather is put on to a "crawl" that runs continuously across the bottom of the screen unless we are expecting a significant weather event.

My biggest change would be local sports. Parents want to see their kids on TV, and the majority of student-athletes don't ever get covered due to how little on-air time is given to sports locally because of the small sports staffs at these stations, and just the sheer number of kids playing everything.

I cut my teeth in broadcasting class C games on the radio. In small towns across Montana, high school sports are still king. Most of the time in these small towns, most of the population of that area is attending those games.

So, I'll summarize. More local sports coverage and push the viewers to the tv station website for the lesser important news stories. Just a thought.