The Pew Research Center is out with new findings and it continues to show the declining audience in local TV news.

Pew finds that while television remains the most common place for Americans to get their news, with local TV outpacing cable and network TV, local TV news saw its audience decline across all time slots studied this past year.

What is really scary is the audience drop off is in double digits across the board.

The average audience (defined as the average number of TVs tuned to a program throughout a time period) for the morning news time slot decreased 10% in 2018. Local TV average audience for the late night and evening news time slots also declined (14% for both). Audience for the midday news (11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and prime news (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.) time slots both declined 19%.

The good news is TV stations are still raking in big bucks.

In 2018, an election year, local TV over-the-air advertising revenue totaled $19.3 billion, a 12% increase over 2017, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of MEDIA Access Pro & BIA Advisory Services data. In comparison, local TV advertising revenue in the two most recent election years was $19.8 billion (2016) and $19.3 billion (2014).

And those stations can thank the news department for helping bring in the money. Advertising revenue for 829 local TV stations defined as “news-producing stations” (i.e., stations that have a news director and are viable, commercial and English-language affiliates in the U.S.) was $15.8 billion, 82% of the total $19.3 billion revenue for the local TV industry overall.

So, in other words, stations need to keep producing newscast in order to make money.

Now, if they could produce “better” newscasts that make viewers want to tune in, they might even make more money.

With more people watching on demand entertainment shows on streaming devices, the future of local TV in in the news that they produce.

Any TV station or group that is not looking to expand their news product and local programming is setting themselves up for failure.

Just saying.

Here is a look at the full study from Journalism.org