New Magid Research At Local TV Strategies: Young News Consumers Crave Community

Elusive younger consumers may be more tuned in to the news than media organizations have feared, upcoming research from Magid suggests.

The study, “Connecting With Younger Consumers in the Omnimedia Landscape,” is currently underway and due to be presented at TVNewsCheck’s Local TV Strategies conference on Oct. 21 at the NAB Show New York. It gives hope to newsrooms that 18-34-year-olds are as tethered or more to news content as their older counterparts, says Magid COO Jaime Spencer, who will present the research.

Nevertheless, there are some pronounced predilections.

“Their drive for getting news is less about just being informed and a lot more about social grease — something I can talk to with others, being in the know, not being left out, as opposed to ‘I want to know what’s happening in my neighborhood right now,’” he says.

Spencer says younger demographics aren’t particularly interested in breaking news, as immediacy isn’t a priority. “It is a lot more about perspectives, those ideas of reassuring my worldview,” he says, hastening to add that young audiences are also likelier to look for challenging perspectives than older cohorts. “There’s a dichotomy there,” he says.

Community is a major driver for young consumers, Spencer says, but not necessarily in a geographic sense. “It’s more about psychographic communities, ideological communities,” he notes.

Magid’s research will also address device preferences and use cases among the young, including where the television sits inside of their arsenal. Younger viewers’ embrace of the phone is largely down to living circumstances, Spencer says, noting they’re “less likely to have that really cushy, great room with the giant television, and to sit down and sink in.” Long-form content is likelier to be consumed on a laptop in bed or a living room table, he adds.

Unsurprisingly, vertical video is their preferred format.

Spencer says the forthcoming research using Magid’s News Perception Index will take in double the size of news brands it originally considered in research presented at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference at the NAB Show in April. Now just short of 300 news brands will be under consideration. There will also be larger audience sample sizes with cluster analyses identifying audiences psychographically and looking deeper at overlaps among different brands to understand how those brands are connected in younger consumers’ minds.

Local TV Strategies will be presented at the Javits Center. Other sessions include:

TV’s Watershed 2027: Rebooting Revenue Strategies With Streaming At The Center — As local broadcasters enter 2027 without this year’s sports and political tentpoles to lean on, S&P Global’s Justin Nielson charts a course for TV to lean into its strengths with live sports and news programming. How can broadcasters balance cost discipline against the need for their network partners to secure must-have live events? How can they expand linear ad revenue while investing significantly more in streaming content and revenue strategies?

Local TV Finance Leaders on New Frontiers — Major station group CFOs share their perspectives on the upshot of AI, automation, consolidation, advertising and subscriber revenue and the economics of local news. Where do they see technology and operations helping to drive EBITDA in a rapidly changing omnimedia world? 

Local Streaming Leaders on Winning Strategies — Top streaming executives at major station groups unpack successful experiments in content/programming, audience development and monetization in a detail-packed overview of the AVOD and FAST landscapes.

AI Roadmaps for the TV Station Group — Industry AI pioneers share cutting edge implementations and outcomes across content creation and distribution, operations and monetization. How are groups building or adapting AI systems to fundamentally transform their workflows and business trajectories?

Media Buyers And Sellers on 2027’s State of Play — Leaders frankly assess a market where silos continue to stymie innovation for regional and national advertisers. How are the buying and selling communities making local advertising more attractive and efficient?

Firing Up the Future of Local TV Revenue — Billions of dollars in new ad revenue could flow local TV’s way if the industry can collaborate on ways to present a new face to the marketplace — streamlined, multiplatform, interactive. How can station groups work together to win dollars away from digital and CTV by aligning business protocols and technologies? How can they make the most of cross-platform, addressable and programmatic advertising, working with a much wider array of buyers? What do media planners and buyers need to send more revenue local media’s way?

Tech Futurists on Agility and Innovation — Chief technologists frame up plans for syncing tech investments with business objectives amid increasing pressure for efficiency and centralization. What are the greatest challenges they face in a period of flat or shrinking revenue growth?

Register here and use discount code LTVSEB26 for $100 off admission.

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