One of the biggest problems media marketers are facing is how to reach every single one of their fans, viewers and users with the platforms and means they have at their disposal. For local and affiliate marketing, it’s no different – only with half of the resources. And with more station groups consolidating under one roof, it provides certain advantages otherwise lost to individual stations.

Today at Station Summit in Las Vegas, five leaders in this tough but thriving space gathered to share their success stories in promoting local station fare, advantages of station consolidation and the challenges of going “Everywhere,” in the session “Welcome to Now: The Innovators, Leaders and Architects of the New Broadcast Paradigm.”

As moderator Paige Albiniak stated, the broadcast industry has seen consolidations, acquisitions and mergers like we haven’t seen in years. “What does this consolidation mean for the broadcast industry?”

According to Deborah McDermott, president and CEO of Young Broadcasting, “The biggest advantage is that as your company gets larger, you’re more relevant – and you need to stay relevant.”

Scott Blumenthal, EVP of television at LIN Media, agreed wholeheartedly. “We have to be able to put our market and our product and our people in a place where the consumers want them, when they want them – and you need size to do that.”

But the larger the company, the farther away one gets from “local.” The panelists agreed that there is a certain challenge in keeping the original goal in mind when moving into larger territories.

“I think you work for a certain standardization but you need to maintain local identities, so I think that’s the challenge,” said Larry Wert, president of broadcast media at Tribune.

Blumenthal addressed the prevalence of digital reporting and promoting in the newsroom also, noticing that “About five years ago we had seven people in our digital division. Now we’re pushing 300.” He added that “We need to talk more than just a streaming system or a website – it goes a hell of a lot further than that.”

The five representatives also agreed that local stations are the place to do it – with a local disaster or when big news breaks, local stations need to be the place to turn, and more importantly, they need to make sure viewers know that. One of the biggest challenges next for them is where to focus, and how to make sure they are where their viewers need them most.

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