• by Wayne Friedman , November 22, 2006

In a year when local TV stations amassed record billions in political ads, some are also airing less political news in their TV newscasts than ever before.

Among nine Midwest markets, for example, only a slim average of 36 seconds of political election coverage was aired during a typical 30-minute newscast, from September 7 to October 6. This is according to the University of Wisconsin's NewsLab. The markets included stations in Chicago; Springfield, Ill.; Detroit; Lansing, Mich.; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Cleveland; Columbus; Madison, and Milwaukee.

Among many different news categories, according to the study, only foreign policy and "unintentional injury" stories received less airplay.

While less political news was featured in many local TV newscasts, this wasn't true for all TV political messaging. A record $2 billion was spent on TV political ads for the just-concluded mid-year political elections alone.

Still, stations need to protect their FCC licenses, in which public service activities are mandatory. Many station proponents and industry groups point out that local TV stations' PSA activities have slacked off in recent years.

But the National Association of Broadcasters blasted the study, saying that it was seriously biased and that it ignored debates, public-affairs programs, morning news, noon news, 4 p.m. news, and Saturday and Sunday morning programming.

For its part, NBC Universal also disagreed with the study, saying that it excluded large blocks of time in which NBC and Telemundo stations averaged over five minutes per day for the nine weeks preceding the election. The study now paints a mixed overall picture about TV stations' news commitment. It comes in the wake of some improved network political ratings. During this month's elections, viewers across ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the Fox News Channel and MSNBC rose 10% to 29.1 million versus 2002. Household ratings also improved to a 19.5 rating/31 share--up from an 18.1 rating/29 share four years ago.