Hearst Television Goes Deep on Hyper-Local Streaming Shows

variety.com:

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Hearst Television began an experiment last year to see if there was a market for hyper-local streaming content closely tied to the markets served by its 26 TV stations.

The answer, they soon discovered, is yes. Andrew Fitzgerald, senior VP of streaming services for Hearst Television, details the company’s decision to expand the original content featured on the Very Local free streaming platform on the latest episode of Variety‘s weekly podcast “Strictly Business.” Very Local has had an encouraging start thanks to the rising tide of viewership for FAST channels, or free ad-supported streaming television, and the growing numbers of broadband-only U.S.

homes that don’t have access to local broadcast TV stations. That amounts to a looming existential crisis for local broadcast TV stations, which explains why Hearst is tapping its considerable resources to experiment with reaching local viewers in new ways.

Very Local serves as a central hub for all local newscasts produced across Hearst’s TV stations. They’re made available on a time-delayed basis but without any geographic boundaries. “When we launched the product, there were two trends we thought were really interesting.