How will the consolidation of Indy TV stations change our city?
April 8, 2026
This column is part of the Indianapolis Public Editor project, a pilot program designed to test whether the presence of a public editor who analyzes local coverage can elevate audience trust in journalism and promote media literacy.
As news consumers, we want to have choices. If we have choices, we can give our attention to those news providers who meet our needs, thus encouraging them to continue providing the content we want. But, how much choice do we have in the age of TV news consolidation?
Last week, a significant number of reporters at WRTV lost their jobs as Circle City Broadcasting, the locally owned and operated broadcasting company, finalized its acquisition of the station from E.W. Scripps Company. They now own three stations in Indianapolis — WISH-TV Channel 8, WNDY-TV Channel 23 and WRTV-TV Channel 6.
On March 19, Nexstar Media Group, the parent company of FOX59 and CBS4, closed the deal to buy TEGNA, which owns WTHR.
At this moment, Indy’s TV market has gone from four owners to two. (A few caveats: A federal judge has paused the deal to consider antitrust claims, and Nexstar has agreed to sell WTHR. If that happens, we will have three owners).
Is news consolidation good or bad for news consumers?
News consolidation is good for companies that need to turn a profit, but bad for people who value a wide variety of local stories. Experts I spoke to say having fewer journalists will be bad for our community.
Right now, there are 225 news organizations in Indiana, according to a report released last week by researchers at The Media School at Indiana University. Marion County has 26 news organizations, the most in the state. Consolidation of news outlets leads to fewer stories about our community and fewer jobs for reporters.
Suzannah Evans Comfort is the IU professor who led the team who produced the report, “Journalism at the Crossroads of America.” I spoke to her about consolidation in our community. “There is research to suggest that it does result in reduced original journalism,” she said, “although it varies depending on context.”
“One of the things that ownership consolidation allows is for companies to continue to exist, and that’s why they do it,” she said.
It’s a survival strategy for companies that had much higher profit margins before the internet fragmented the audience by flooding us all with different choices of what to do with our attention.
Television markets across the U.S. have been consolidating for decades, starting with mega mergers in the 1980s, she said. This latest iteration of that trend has been aided by federal policies that encourage consolidation.
“A lot of the push for deregulation is coming from the media companies,” Comfort said. “People politicize it and say Republicans want it or something, but it’s actually coming from the media companies themselves. They’re the ones who are suing and advocating for the policy change to allow more consolidation.”
I asked DuJuan McCoy, owner, president, and CEO of Circle City Broadcasting about the future of local news. He says it’s “bright.”
“What broadcasters offer local communities is very unique and unparalleled by any other media,” McCoy said in an email interview. “Consolidation works on a case by case basis. In our case, we were able to add an ABC affiliate to our CW and MyNetwork combo, where we were producing over 90 hours per week of local news and content. While WRTV was doing around 23 hours per week.”
On Monday, WRTV-ABC announced that it will debut a new morning news team and expand its AM LIVE programming beginning May 4. Instead of a hybrid of live and recorded broadcasts between 5 to 7 a.m., the station will be fully live, expanding to three hours between 4 to 7 a.m.
Since WISH-TV and WRTV consolidated, resulting in layoffs, WISH-TV staff have covered the newscasts at WRTV, identifying themselves with their new sister station as Channel 6, ABC News. Nexstar representatives declined to discuss their plans for consolidating WTHR with FOX59 and CBS4.
Why news consumers should be concerned
Comfort said that consumers should be concerned about TV news consolidation because they are no longer able to influence advertising dollars directed at the news shows they watch.
“It takes away their choice,” she explained. “You think, I can vote with my eyes, right? If I don’t like CBS News, I’ll watch ABC News. But, you’re no longer able to vote with your eyes because they have the same owner.”
“There used to be quite strict policies in place to prevent any one company from dominating in a media market, because the idea was, of course, that competition is good for the community, when it comes to information and media,” Comfort said.
Some community groups are also concerned.
Josh Riddick is the state director for LiveFree Indiana, which is a grassroots, faith-based organization that includes collaboration with the Black Church Coalition. The group advocates for community violence intervention initiatives, affordable housing, and does community organizing around other topics. He has already seen the results of having fewer reporters on the ground in Indy. After previous consolidation in the TV landscape, he’s heard stations tell him they don’t have the capacity to cover events because they don’t have the staff.
Riddick calls Indy the epicenter of media in Central Indiana and the region. “And in spite of that, I’ve watched our media market actually decrease in capacity and staff and reporter engagement, which has been really detrimental to how we tell stories, what stories get to be heard, how we center ideas,” Riddick said.
Riddick is trying to make it more likely that stories from his community get covered by television stations by training spokespeople for the Black Church Coalition to be compelling, clear and concise. That way, if they do manage to get a reporter to cover their story, the chances of getting a good soundbite are higher, and their comments won’t be misinterpreted.
His training even accounts for the original story being repackaged by multiple news outlets, and possibly losing key details in the process, before it gets to Black Indy Live, the popular digital news and media platform.
“And so then our community is reacting to essentially a soundbite of a soundbite,” he said. “And the full context isn’t even being grappled with or understood. And oftentimes the way that they’re framed to go viral is to sensationalize or, you know, highlight a very specific component that isn’t reflective of the full breadth of what has happened.”
This is especially true of local crime coverage, which Riddick feels is overreported and not reflective of reality in Indy’s Black community.
Tamara Winfrey-Harris, president of the Women’s Foundation of Indiana, is also concerned. There isn’t enough thoughtful, factual coverage of issues that impact women and girls, she said, and media consolidation may worsen this problem.
“My ask to owners of media companies, on behalf of women and girls, is to weigh the impact of consolidation on the content of the news and the communities they serve,” she said via email. “For instance, women, who make up more than half of the population, are just 26 percent of all news sources nationwide. Media consolidation can widen gaps like this for all unrepresented folks. News orgs who cannot articulate how they will mitigate these effects and continue to serve the awesome breadth of Hoosier communities will not serve us well.”
State Rep. Ed Delaney, a Democrat representing Indianapolis, said that local TV news coverage is already weak, with excessive weather coverage, stories about dogs, animals, and minor health incidents — not the big issues like paying for Medicaid. He remembers when Jane Pauley was a local TV star at WISH-TV before she rose to national prominence. Back then, he said, reporters stayed with their stations longer, developing more of a connection with the audience and local expertise in the community.
“That all seems to have disappeared,” Delaney said. “So the question is, will the three stations that are coming together be able to restore some of that local coverage, some more star quality — something other than human interest stories? That would please me.”
He holds out hope that TV news consolidation will be good for Indianapolis, and is encouraged by the previous consolidation of FOX59 and CBS4, which he said has resulted in increased coverage of the Statehouse.
“That’s all I have is hope because I don’t think the present situation is making a lot of money for these stations, except when they have political ads.”
What should viewers look for as TV stations consolidate?
Most experts are not that optimistic about what we are going to see on the local news here in Indy.
“More soft news, less hard news and also more coverage of crime,” said Anthony Fargo, IU associate professor and director for the Center for International Media Law and Policy Studies. “The stations in Indianapolis already seem to do a disproportionate amount of crime coverage, which is kind of typical of a lot of TV stations at the local level. What you’ll probably see is a little less coverage of the Statehouse — what’s going on with the legislature and with the governor’s office.”
Instead, Fargo said viewers will see more stories about scheduled events, like press conferences, groundbreakings, and speeches.
Some people fear that the political leanings of large corporations will show up in news coverage at the local level. A 2026 study of the Sinclair ownership group found minimal evidence of political bias in news stories, which somewhat surprised the researchers.
“There’s less editorialization,” said associate professor Jesse Abdenour, who was the lead researcher for the study at the University of Oregon. “That’s something that used to be more of a staple of local news, like ‘let me tell you my opinion.’ So generally, they don’t wade into political waters as much as some cable news stations. So, from that standpoint, it wasn’t surprising because they’re falling in line with the tradition of local TV news that’s been around for a while.”
Sinclair Broadcast Group is the second largest owner of TV stations in the U.S. The study looked at data from 2,300 stories in 40 U.S. markets, and found that Sinclair stations did not use an overabundance of conservative sources. There are no Sinclair-owned stations in Indianapolis, but the report is useful for examining the realities of corporate influence on local coverage.
A more apt question or concern might be that reporters will self-censor the stories they pitch based on a perception of a conflict of interest with their parent ownership. This issue might weigh heavily on them as job prospects in one market shrink.
“You only have a couple of different potential employers you could work for if you’re going to work in broadcast television moving forward,” Comfort said about broadcast opportunities in Indianapolis. “So, it really does restrict the autonomy of the journalist, even if it’s not like there’s a memo that goes out and says you’re not allowed to report on this or that, or this is how you’re supposed to behave.”
What should news consumers do?
We are not completely powerless as our local TV journalism transforms. A large portion of news consumers — 64% of us — get our news from television at least some of the time. One third of the population relies heavily on local news.
These changes in Indy’s TV news landscape mean that it will be less likely that we see our entire community reflected in broadcast coverage. We learn about our neighbors, from the stories that are told in the news media. This is also how the rest of the country learns about us. When the number of reporters in the city shrinks, so does that window into the lives of the people who live here.
We can watch and take notes. We can demand accountability. How well do you see your neighborhood or community represented on local TV? What do you want more information about? What topics are always on the news that you want less information about?
Send me your questions and observations as these changes unfold. I’ll be monitoring the impact of TV news consolidation on local coverage. While the broadcast corporations claim that these changes are necessary to compete against the internet, streaming platforms and social media, we should keep track of what we are losing. People matter and perspectives matter. When reporting jobs go by the wayside, so too go stories about our community from diverse perspectives.
I’d love to hear from you. Please send your questions about Indy’s media ecosystem to indypubliceditor@poynter.org, or reach out to let me know if you’d like me to come speak to your community group. Your input helps strengthen Indianapolis’ local journalism.
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The Indy Public Editor is a grant-funded pilot project run by the Poynter Institute. This column is edited by Kelly McBride and copy edited by Lauren Klinger. The project is managed by Nicole Slaughter Graham with support from Amaris Castillo.