ABSTRACT
Television news is considered the primary source of public information about 'world and national events' for the overwhelming majority of Americans. The networks are less necessary to local stations, so too are local stations less necessary to the local television market. The technology that has helped local broadcast stations has also enabled out-of-market 'superstations' to beam in on many lucrative markets all over the country. The net result of all this technological innovation is to radically reduce the market share of each outlet and to even more seriously undercut the revenue base of advertiser-supported television media, whose rates are not only based on raw numbers but increasingly on demographically targeted market segments. An overwhelming amount of specific case study has been commissioned by the customers for product promotion and corporate image enhancement and is in fact the bulk of what is known as market research.
