Green Bay TV Stations and Their Fight to Remain Relevant

Link to March 28 Green Bay Post-Gazette article, "Broadcast television faces uncertain times in quest for viewership".

Excerpt:   Not only are the Green Bay-area stations competing among themselves for the news audience, they compete with many new players — including those on cable and the Internet — for viewers' attention and time.

Can it survive?

"In the short run, yes; in the long run, probably not," said Barry Orton, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of telecommunications.

"The audience is fragmented into many little pieces instead of a few big pieces."

The continued recession also is taking its toll on the employment ranks of the Green Bay area's four television stations.

They're all doing more with less.

[snip]

Television in Green Bay started March 17, 1953, with Channel 2. For many years, the market included three stations — 2, 5 and 11. Public TV WPNE, Channel 38, arrived in 1972.

Today, the market has eight commercial broadcast channels and three public TV channels.

Cable, satellite and AT&T add scores more channels from national outlets.

"The television stations used to get the biggest pieces of the pie, as did newspapers — and what I say goes for newspapers as well," UW-Madison's Orton said. "And with all these competitors and with all people who are going to new media and different media, the pieces get smaller and smaller.