Major changes are coming to Wyoming’s television news scene with the transfer of two Cowboy State stations owned by Gray Television to Marquee Broadcasting.
Marquee announced in February it would buy all of Gray’s television assets in Wyoming and western Nebraska, including stations KGWN (Cheyenne), KCWY (Casper), KSTF (Scottsbluff, Nebraska) and KNEP (Sidney, Nebraska). They already owned the Sheridan, Wyoming station, KSWY.
The sale had been pending FCC approval, which has now been granted.
“We’re trying,” Marquee CEO Gene Steinberg told Cowboy State Daily. “We’re glad (for) what Gray did, and now we’re just trying to build on it, make it bigger, brighter, better and all that good stuff. What I always tell people is we don’t buy these things to screw them up. We buy them to try to improve them.”
Two weeks into the acquisition being finalized, Marquee has already hired a news director, Steinberg added, who will focus on listening to what the communities want to see in its news coverage.
“I think that’s what we have to do first,” Steinberg said. “Interact with the community and see what the needs are.”
Marquee Broadcasting’s purchases in Wyoming adds to a portfolio that includes stations in Georgia, Ohio, Maryland and Idaho.
Television’s Empire Strikes Back Moment
It’s a messy time in the television industry in general, and the news business in particular.
While television has long been a mirror and engine of American culture, viewership for traditional television has declined dramatically amidst a cord-cutting bonanza that has favored streaming options like Netflix, YouTube and Hulu, none of which really offers much in the way of local television news.
Television news stations are very dependent on the ability to continue attracting eyeballs, and thus dollars. So declining television viewership overall poses some obvious challenges for the future.
According to Nielsen, which has tracked viewership statistics for decades, traditional linear television viewership was less than half of all viewing for the first time in July 2023.
Broadcast viewership dropped 3.6%, coming in at 20% of all television viewership, and cable viewing was down 2.9%, coming in at 29.6%.
Streaming services, meanwhile, hit a record high of 38.7% of all television watching. Their rate of increase has slowed lately, but is still rising.
According to their June 2024 report, streaming has a 40.3% slice of the market, the highest share of television viewing that Nielsen has yet reported.
Topping the list across streaming platforms are Disney+ at 14.8%, Tubi at 14.7%, Netflix at 11.8%, and Max with 11%, with 20% or more of that attributable to younger viewers.
None of those streaming platforms offer much in the way of news programming for local viewers, although Tubi has been rolling out some options for those living in large metropolitan cities in the United States.
The Internet has been another confounding factor for traditional news media outlets. While the impact has been greatest on traditional print media, television stations have been affected too, as people turn to the Internet for news media options that don’t yet have big paywalls.
Still Demand For Quality Local Programming
Steinberg suggested his company’s strategy will be somewhat of a get-back-to-basics approach. Demand is still robust for good-quality local programming when it comes to television newsrooms, he believes.
“Gray had changed some things up, not in a bad way, but everybody looks different when they look in the mirror,” Steinberg said. “So, we’re trying to figure out how to build on the legacy of Casper and Cheyenne and Scottsbluff for that matter.”
Marquee’s motto has long been “because local matters,” Steinberg said. And that will play a big role in what the company decides to do going forward.
“That’s something we really believe in,” he said. “And so we’re just trying to first figure out what the community wants, how to serve them best, and just look at everything from the 5,000-foot level, making sure we’re putting our best foot forward.”
Everything is fair game for tweaks, Steinberg said.
“Are we covering the things that people want covered?” he said. “Are the newscasts in the right time periods? We’re going to look at everything with a blank canvas, which is a great way to look at things. I think, in any business, there’s the old adage that it’s kind of hard to see the forest through the trees. So, looking at things with a bright clear lens is a good way to do things.”
Steinberg expects changes to come together for the newly acquired stations in Cheyenne and Casper sometime this fall, he said.
“We’ve got a lot of moving pieces to put together before we can pull the curtain back,” he said. “But we’re excited about what we can do.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
