---
title: "Local TV: Audience Declines as Revenue Bounces Back"
description: "The long slow decline in viewership of local television news resumed in 2012 after a brief respite the previous year.  While stations devoted more of their available air time to local news, that wasn’t sufficient to halt the decline in viewership.  Early-morning newscasts continued to gain viewers, but that increase was more than offset by losses in most other time slots."
date: "2013-03-19"
authors:
  - name: "Katerina Eva Matsa"
    job_title: "Director, News and Information Research"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/katerina-eva-matsa/"
  - name: "Amy Mitchell"
    job_title: "Former Director, Journalism Research"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/amy-mitchell/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2013/03/19/local-tv-audience-declines-as-revenue-bounces-back/"
categories:
  - "Local News"
  - "Media Industry"
  - "News Coverage"
  - "News Media Trends"
  - "State of the News Media (Project)"
  - "Television"
---

# Local TV: Audience Declines as Revenue Bounces Back