Perry Sook recently penned an opinion piece in Fortune warning that local television could become the next newspaper industry if broadcasters fail to compete effectively against Big Tech. His central argument is simple: Google, Meta, Amazon, and other digital giants have consumed the advertising dollars that once supported local media. Newspapers were devastated, and local television is now under similar pressure. The solution, according to Sook, is scale — bigger television groups, fewer ownership restrictions, more consolidation, and the ability to compete against companies with virtually unlimited resources. He’s not wrong. But he’s also not saying everything.

What Perry Sook Is Saying

Sook’s argument boils down to three realities. First, local television is no longer competing against the station across town — it’s competing against Google, Meta, YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, and every platform that can target consumers with precision and measure results instantly. Second, local broadcasters are operating under ownership regulations written for a media landscape that no longer exists. While Big Tech can reach every American with a smartphone, broadcasters remain constrained by decades-old ownership rules, and Sook argues that consolidation creates the scale necessary to survive. Third, local journalism matters. Whether you agree with Nexstar’s growth strategy or not, Sook genuinely believes local journalism serves an essential role in democracy and community life, and he argues larger companies can continue funding news operations that otherwise might disappear.

All fair points. Kudos to Mr. Sook for championing the industry — as one of its most prominent leaders, that’s exactly what he should be doing. Now let’s talk about the part nobody wants to discuss.

What He Isn’t Saying

The biggest threat to local television isn’t Big Tech. It’s relevance. That may sound harsh, but I spend every day talking to the people who actually work in this business — General Managers, News Directors, Sales Leaders, Anchors, Producers, Digital Directors, Engineers — and the warning signs are becoming impossible to ignore.

The newspaper industry didn’t collapse because Google showed up. Google simply exposed existing weaknesses. Consumers, advertisers, and reader habits were already changing, and the internet accelerated a trend that was already underway. The same question must be asked about local television. If every Big Tech company disappeared tomorrow, would Gen Z suddenly rush home to watch a 6 p.m. newscast? Would 25-year-olds start scheduling their evenings around local news? Would they abandon TikTok, YouTube, podcasts, streaming, newsletters, and social media? Of course not. And that’s the uncomfortable truth.

The Real Canary in the Coal Mine

I have written about this before. Candidates often spot industry change years before executives see it in the numbers, and recruiters who speak with thousands of those candidates often see it before anyone else. I noticed this shift accelerating nearly seven years ago and wrote a blog article discussing it at length; it was widely distributed and discussed. At the time, I believed “Extinction Alert” would be a call to arms for the industry to consider executing wholesale changes before it was too late. Seven years later: did it?

One of the most consistent trends I see today is younger talent questioning whether local television is where they want to build a long-term career. Not because they dislike journalism — many love journalism. They simply consume information differently than previous generations, and they think, work, and build careers differently. When your future workforce and future audience are changing simultaneously, that’s not a staffing issue. That’s a business model issue.

Maybe Big Tech Isn’t The Villain

This is where the conversation gets uncomfortable. The industry loves pointing at Big Tech, and to be fair, there is plenty of evidence that Google, Meta, and others have captured enormous amounts of advertising revenue that once flowed to local media. But what if Big Tech isn’t the cause? What if it’s the symptom — what if Big Tech simply figured out how people want information delivered?

Consumers didn’t abandon newspapers because they hated journalism. They abandoned newspapers because somebody offered a more convenient product. Consumers aren’t abandoning traditional television because they suddenly don’t care about news; they’re abandoning it because somebody else is delivering information faster, more conveniently, more personally, and in a format they prefer. The scary question isn’t whether Big Tech took television’s audience. The scary question is whether television voluntarily gave it away.

Gen Z isn’t waiting until 6 p.m. to learn what happened today. They’re learning about it in real time, from creators, influencers, short-form video, and personalities they trust. And no, despite what one legacy industry insider recently opined, not everything is television. Consumers don’t care what we call it — they care how, when, and where they consume it. Before anyone dismisses influencers as unserious, ask yourself a simple question: how many people under 30 can name your station’s evening anchor? Now compare that to the number who can name their five favorite content creators. That’s not a technology gap. That’s a relevance gap.

Perhaps the future of local television isn’t fighting Big Tech — perhaps it’s learning from it. Perhaps local stations need fewer meetings about protecting the old model and more discussions about reinventing delivery. Perhaps the next great local news star won’t look like a traditional anchor, but more like a trusted local creator. The organizations that figure that out first may have a future measured in decades. The ones that don’t may spend the next decade blaming Silicon Valley.

The Consolidation Question

Sook believes scale is the answer. Maybe he’s right — maybe consolidation buys the industry another decade, maybe longer. The acquisition of TEGNA certainly reflects that belief. But scale has limits. Scale can reduce costs, improve negotiating leverage, improve technology investments, and create efficiencies. What scale cannot do is create demand. It cannot force younger audiences to consume content the way previous generations did. That’s the challenge nobody has solved yet.

The Part Everyone Knows But Rarely Says Out Loud

Local television is a for-profit business. Yes, journalism matters, and yes, local news serves an important public purpose. But television stations do not run on good intentions — they run on revenue: advertising, retransmission fees, and political advertising. For years, political advertising has masked a lot of pain, not all of it, but a lot of it. Every election cycle injects billions into television revenue, helping offset structural challenges elsewhere. But political advertising is not a growth strategy — it’s a temporary financial event. The underlying question remains: what does local television look like when political money is no longer the safety net? Political advertising dollars are increasingly flowing across a wider range of platforms, and all signs suggest that trend will continue to accelerate.

There’s another reality the industry rarely discusses publicly. Retransmission revenue has been a tremendous lifeline for broadcasters over the past two decades, helping offset audience erosion, advertising pressure, and broader industry headwinds in many cases. But retransmission fees are not immune to the same consumer behavior shifts affecting the rest of the business. As cord-cutting accelerates and traditional pay-TV subscribers continue to decline, even that revenue stream faces long-term pressure. Retransmission revenue may buy time; it may not buy a permanent solution. More importantly: what does local television look like ten years from now if audience behavior continues moving in the same direction? Those questions matter far more than ownership caps.

My Take

I am rooting for local television. I make my living recruiting leaders into this industry, and I want it to succeed. Like Mr. Sook, I genuinely believe local journalism matters, and I believe communities are better when strong local news organizations exist. Local weather, local sports, hyper-local content — it all matters.

But I also believe industries get into trouble when they mistake symptoms for causes. Perry Sook is absolutely right that Big Tech changed the economics of media, and he’s absolutely right that broadcasters need scale to compete. What he doesn’t say is that the industry’s biggest challenge may not be competition. It may be consumer behavior. It may be television’s legacy delivery model — not television itself. Yes, read that again.

The newspaper industry didn’t die because newspapers got smaller. They got smaller because fewer people wanted what they were selling. Local television still has time. Unlike newspapers, it still has strong brands, trusted personalities, local connections, retransmission revenue, and political advertising. But the clock is ticking. The winners won’t simply be the biggest broadcasters — they’ll be the broadcasters that figure out how to remain relevant to the next generation before that generation stops paying attention entirely. That’s the real battle, and no FCC ruling can solve it.

Extinction alerts don’t occur when the last customer leaves. They occur when the warning signs are ignored.

-The Canary

About Carver Talent

Carver Talent specializes in recruiting high-impact leaders across local television, digital media, revenue leadership, news management, and broadcast operations nationwide.

We understand this industry because we live in it every day.

And in a media landscape evolving this quickly, strategic talent decisions matter more than ever.

Ty Carver has over 30+ years of recruiting, HR management, sales, and leadership experience…including the last 15 specific to the broadcast media industry. He is the Founder/CEO of Carver Talent, a local broadcast media management recruiting firm. As the former Head of Recruiting for Raycom Media, he has deep industry relationships. Have a media corporate executive/management or television station management recruiting need? Contact ty@carvertalent.com for more information.