Years ago, more than a decade and far from where I am now, I had a chat about the future of local television news with a guy in the business. He spun out a long-term scenario I'd not heard before and seldom have since:
Over time, he said, television stations will do what newspapers have done. They will conclude, for purposes of news at least, that the market cannot reasonably support a multiple of stations. So in markets where three or four stations with full news departments have been the norm, that will scale back. To three, two. Maybe eventually to one. It happened with newspapers. And as the many WB and UPN stations have shown, in this age of deregulation, nothing more than pride requires a television station to develop and air local news, or other programming, for that matter.
That speculation came to mind just now, in reading a comment on the Portland Media Insider site. The comment concerns a rumor (specifically noted as such, and if you're interested you can read about it there) that one of the Portland televison stations will outsorce its news operaton.
The comment: "As sad as it sounds, I think the idea makes some sense. Each ratings book comes back with lower overall local news numbers than the year prior, and there aren't any signs of that trend reversing. Eventually, four local news operations will be too many for the market's demand... and that day is coming sooner than later."
For whatever it's worth, the comments on the site suggest that the "rumor" is at least being taken seriously, even without visible sourcing. Says something in itself.