Broadcast TV is dying. Trump is threatening him anyway

Belt-tightening has already hit another big driver of network TV money: the morning show. In early January, Hoda Kotb left Today show after 17 years. The broadcast journalist reportedly made more than $20 million a year as a host, and NBC just doesn’t want to keep paying that. This is also the reason why the network abandoned the group Late Night with Seth Meyers and reduced the number of weekly episodes of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon from five to four. They’re all signs of what Variety called “television’s new push for austerity.”

“We have an audience that goes to different places to watch their programs,” an agent told Variety. “Some of these businesses are experiencing a drop in revenue. It’s just a fact of life.”

But with over-the-air TV audiences now split between streaming, cable and social media, why is that Donald Trump threaten its existence? “This is a political cudgel being used against national news networks,” said David Green, director of civil liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Green noted that Trump’s ire is aimed more at national news outlets than at the local stations that actually own the broadcast licenses.

Some networks own local stations. Paramount, which also produces CBS 60 minutesowns a handful and even researched I am selling 12 of them back in August before Trump made his latest threats to the network. But when I asked Oberman about those threats, she said she hadn’t “really heard that this was a problem area” for the industry. “If anything, the next administration is kinder to broadcasters.”

Perry Suk, CEO of Nexstar, the largest U.S. television station owner, hopes the new administration will eliminate rules limiting the number of local stations a company can own. included November 2024 earnings callSook has made it clear what kind of journalism he would like to see on these stations. “(It looks like) there may be a kinder, softer consensus emerging that maybe fact-based journalism will come back into vogue, as well as eliminating the level of activist journalism there,” he said on the call.

Sinclair, the second-largest U.S. TV station owner, is also eager for more consolidation and has earned a reputation for directing its local stations to cover news with a POV more in line with Sinclair’s own conservative political leanings. Sinclair was subject to a Viral Video of 2018 which showed dozens of news anchors from across the US reading the exact same script, criticizing the media for repeating common conservative talking points.

But the Trump administration and the big owners of broadcast licenses are not on friendly terms just because of their shared political leanings. According to Orman, local stations also have better reach when it comes to political advertising. “Digital doesn’t seem to be giving political advertisers the returns they expect, TV still seems to be,” Orman told Ad Exchanger late last year. Broadcast TV actually saw its ad revenue grow 9 percent in 2024, driven entirely by increased spending on political ads during the major election cycle.

With the election in the background, that ad money is drying up. And with viewership shrinking and streaming outpacing networks, one of the world’s oldest media institutions has its back against the wall. Even if the incoming administration fails to follow through on its promise to punish media outlets that publish stories it finds offensive, television is entering a period of existential uncertainty.

“Broadcasting is so vulnerable right now,” says the EFF’s Green, “any threat against it seems a danger.”