• Research from Share Rocket on one year of social media impressions, video views and engagement on 210 local TV markets found that social media ads could bring in $1.4 billion for those local stations in 2018, as reported by MediaPost.
• The figure was based on local TV stations’ Facebook Page audiences applied to the sponsored-content revenue opportunities available to those stations.
• The Share Rocket report broke the opportunity down by market size: the social media value of the top 10 marketers is $446 million, $747 million for the top 20 markets, $1.08 billion for the top 50 markets and $1.3 billion for the top 100 markets. Chicago stood out at the top for premium social media content for local TV. The report also found that the top five markets local station Facebook pages have more reach than their broadcast signal.

he report cuts two ways for local TV stations looking to stay afloat in a changing media environment. On the one hand, having a viable revenue stream in social media advertising can only be welcomed. However, on the other hearing that stations in the top markets have a larger social media reach than their broadcast signal business is an indication the core business is fundamentally changing.

Looking beyond next year, Share Rocket believes sponsored social media content will grow dramatically by 2021, citing eMarketer’s forecast of this content becoming a $20 billion market in the next four years.

Like their larger traditional broadcast network partners, local TV stations face the same pressures of falling ratings due to cord cutting, never corders and the reality that younger demographics in particular are watching media in many different ways and on many devices with a TV just one of many options.

Local TV stations should begin finding alternate sources of revenue and social media could be a valuable option. Last month eMarketer revised its total TV ad spending forecast for this year down to $71.65 billion from $72.72 billion predicted in Q1. The downgrade was due to cord cutting accelerating faster than expected in 2017.