It’s still a dozen days until Halloween, when all the little ghosts and ghouls will be out for trick-or-treating. (And probably a few not-so-little ones, too.) But this October has brought a different kind of horror show to nearly 1,400 local television stations across the nation.
And from the few folks we have talked to, it has already been pretty bloody.
You see, October isn’t just the month with the spookiest day of the year; it is also when many local stations go through the annual exercise of budgeting for the year to come. Depending on the company, October is typically the pivotal month when stations present their “strategic plans” for what they project their business outlook will be over the next twelve months—in this case, 2027.
And for many, the outlook isn’t that good.
The irony of this timing is that while many stations, especially those in the “battleground states” of the 2026 midterm elections, are currently overrun with political advertising of all stripes, they face next year knowing there will be little or no political money washing in with the only colored wave that really matters, the green one.
Say what you will about SCOTUS’s 2010 Citizens United decision, but you could just as easily call it “The Preservation of Local Broadcasting Act.” By striking down limits on independent corporate election spending, the court opened the door to super PACs and their outside-group cousins. This cycle, their spending on spots carrying the fine print “not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee” is outspending the ones where the candidate “approves this message” by roughly two to one. And unlike candidates, those groups don’t get the lowest unit rate. They pay top dollar.
The day after the election, the ride on all that political money ends.
Add that financial roller coaster to the continuing declines in audience levels, the continuing migration of ad dollars to digital, and the continuing debt service ownership groups must pay, and making the budget numbers work at most local TV stations for the next fiscal year isn’t just scary. It’s terrifying.
In that equation, cutting more costs is the only lever most operations can pull to deliver a positive outcome. And to quote the classic horror movie setup: “the call is coming from inside the house.”
Or, more precisely, the call for more cuts is coming from inside the company.
We’ve heard from several friends in leadership positions at stations across the country, and their stories sound pretty much the same. The first (or subsequent) pass in the budgeting process has ended with one message from corporate leadership: “Go back and make more cuts.”
And these cuts are deep ones. Not just freezing or eliminating positions. Everything from anchors learning to direct their own shows to videographers becoming full-time reporters. Hacking off weekend newscasts like a random arm or leg.
Talk about watching a bad “slasher” movie.
Stations in the top 50 markets are being told to find seven-figure amounts in budget savings. Smaller stations might be asked to cut fewer dollars, but that’s still a significant percentage of their annual operating costs. And this isn’t a new horror show; this script has been the same for years now.
Like in every bad horror movie, the quick fix is always the same: more blood. But we’re not talking about seeing more dyed corn syrup here.
With this plot in mind, we’d suggest that if you’re working in a local station, you take some pity on your News Director or General Manager, who is probably trying to hold on to their sanity through this brutal process. That assumes your station still has a General Manager in the building, rather than one who parachutes in about as often as Hollywood greenlights another Halloween sequel. (It seems that some groups decided that losing a GM salary might be a cut worth making.)
The next villain in the franchise? Perhaps the growing use of AI tools in the newsroom to fill all the holes this kind of endless cutting leaves behind. (Sorry, but we aren’t adopting the White House’s ordered rebranding to “Super Intelligence” here.) If you don’t think that could lead to some scary scenarios while trying to cover the news, think again.
We’d be less than honest if we didn’t ask whether 2027 is the year perennial fourth-place local TV stations will be killing off some—or all—of their newscasts for cheaper alternatives. (Not that there are that many to choose from.)
Halloween comes and goes in one night. This horror show could run all next year, and yes—the call for more cuts will still come from inside the house.
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