Belt-tightening has already hit another driver of network TV’s biggest revenue: the morning show. In early January, Hoda Kotb left the Today show after 17 years. The broadcast reporter reportedly made over $20 million a year as a host, and NBC didn’t want to continue paying that. This is also why the network ditched the band Late Night With Seth Meyers and reduce the number of weekly episodes of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon from five to four. All are signs of what Variety called “TV’s new austerity push.”
“We have listeners who go to different places to watch their shows,” another agent told Variety. “Most of these agencies see their income decrease. That is a fact of life.”
But with broadcast TV audiences now fragmented across broadcast, cable, and social media, why is Donald Trump threatening its existence? “This is a political act against the country’s social media,” said David Greene, director of civil liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Greene noted that Trump’s anger was focused more on national news outlets than local stations with broadcast licenses.
Some networks own local stations. Paramount, which also produces CBS 60 Minuteshe owns a handful, and was even considering selling 12 of them in August before Trump issued his latest threats to the network. But when I asked Oberman about those threats, he said he hadn’t heard that it was a concern” in the industry. “If anything, the incoming managers are friendly with broadcasters.”
Perry Sook, CEO of Nexstar, the largest television station owner in the US, hopes the new administration will remove rules that limit the number of local stations a company can own. On the November 2024 earnings call, Sook made it clear what kind of journalism he would like to see on those channels. “[I]”It looks like there may be a kinder, gentler consensus emerging, that maybe truth-based journalism is going to come back into shape, and to end the level of activist journalism out there,” he said on the phone.
Sinclair, the second-largest TV station owner in the US, is also eager for more consolidation, and has earned a reputation for directing local stations to cover news from a POV more in line with Sinclair’s conservative political leanings. Sinclair was the subject of a 2018 viral video that showed dozens of news anchors from across the US reading the same text criticizing the media that repeats common talking points.
But the Trump administration and major broadcast license holders are not just friends because of their shared political leanings. According to Orman, local stations also tend to have better reach when it comes to political advertising. “Digital doesn’t seem to give political advertisers the returns they expect, and TV still seems to,” Orman told Ad Exchanger late last year. Broadcast TV actually saw its ad revenue rise 9 percent in 2024, a result due to increased spending on political ads during the main election cycle.
With the election behind us, that ad money is disappearing. And as viewership fades and broadcasts overtake the networks that broadcast boxing, one of the world’s oldest media outlets is headed for the wall. Even if the incoming administration fails to fulfill its promise to punish media outlets that carry stories they find offensive, broadcast TV is entering an era of uncertainty.
“Broadcasting is very vulnerable right now,” said EFF’s Greene, “any threat to it seems dangerous.”