Television is still the most popular and most trusted source of information, studies in many countries say. In Austria, the numbers for TV consumption are rising. In 2017, Austrians (above twelve years) were on average watching TV for 186 minutes a day. About 4.9 million people were reached by TV programmes on a daily basis in 2017, that is 65.3 % of the population. When taking a look at the most popular shows, we see that the top 4 were information programmes concerning the Austrian parliamentary election.

For many younger viewers, however, sitting in front of a TV is not common anymore. They are increasingly using online sources to inform themselves. They find more personalised and appealing news online, which makes it unlikely for them to return to television when they get older. But television news is still important, BBC World News TV journalist Ben Tobias thinks. People trust in it more than in other sources and it helps to define public debate. Therefore, television information is still relevant and has to make sure it also stays relevant in the future.

In his study, which Ben Tobias conducted as a Reuters institute fellowship paper at the University of Oxford, he wanted to find out, how television news can achieve this. He asked why it is losing younger viewers and what it can do about it. Tobias conducted interviews with industry experts, analysed four TV news programmes and asked about 400 people worldwide, what they find appealing. He did not analyse digital strategies but rather focused on television news and how it could or should change in order to stay relevant. He shows: It is not just about what but also how TV news reports.

How TV news programmes need to change to appeal to a young audience
According to Tobias, especially young audiences are not satisfied with the great amount of negative news. They ask for more good news, for constructive journalism. Also, there is a lot of disillusionment with politics. While it is no option to stop reporting political news, TV news should rethink the way they do it, Tobias argues. Showing "real people", those who are really affected by political changes, would enhance connection to the audience more than telling political stories through politicians. However, such "real people" are often more difficult to find and might have problems articulating their thoughts - factors that explain why journalists often choose politicians or other experts with media experience.
A common criticism to TV news is the formal style and tone. It makes it more unlikely for the audience to engage with the news. The challenge is to keep the impartiality and objectivity that are connected with the formal style in a new way of reporting.

But why should someone who has consumed different kinds of news all day on their smartphone sit down in front of a TV at the end of the day and watch an evening news programme?
The watching experience has to be worth it, Tobias says. Watching a show on a big television screen with good sound exceeds the (often mute) little clips on a smartphone by far. TV stations should therefore invest in the production of high quality images and sound to create and audio-visually rich experience that sets TV apart from smaller-screen watching experience.

Another asset of TV news is the curation of content. Professional editors select stories and organise them into manageable pieces. Guiding its viewers towards relevant information is an advantage of TV news compared to the internet. Armin Wolf highlights this aspect in this book "Wozu brauchen wir noch Journalisten?" ("Why do we still need journalists?") from 2013. Today, we can access an immense amount of information online but it is impossible to consume all of them. Therefore, we need journalists in whom we trust to curate the content for us. This is the key competence of journalists, according to Wolf: Being able to distinguish important from unimportant and true from false news.

According to Tobias, television news should also aim for original, exclusive content. "The audience should know that they can turn to TV to find the organisation's best journalism", he states.

4 programmes for the future
Ben Tobias analysed four TV news programmes: Al Jazeera English's "NewsGrid", BBC's "Outside Source", HBO's "Vice News Tonight" and BBC One's "News at Ten". The first three are innovative TV programmes, designed to be different, and the last one is a traditional programme trying to adapt.

Tobias' analysis showed that the three "new-style" programmes acted somewhat traditionally in their mix of stories. The more "traditional" "News at Ten", on the other hand, provided less political stories, more positive stories and more diversity in voices and could thus be described as more appealing to younger audiences. However, the "new-style" programmes are very much different in the way they present the topics. They use more informal, authentic language and storytelling techniques to draw in the viewers. Authenticity evokes trust - and trust is what TV news wants to preserve.

With his audience survey, Tobias teaches two important lessons: Many changes which seem very radical to the producers do not seem so to the audience. And: TV news producers should only integrate news features that really add value for the audience.

More information:
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2018-09/Ben%20Tobias%20full%20research%20paper%20FINAL.pdf
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/forever-old-why-tv-news-losing-younger-viewers-and-what-can-be-done-about-it
https://der.orf.at/medienforschung/fernsehen/fernsehnutzunginoesterreich/index.html
https://der.orf.at/medienforschung/fernsehen/topsendungen/index.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/interactive-news-hour-1611230907-161126140702840.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n13xtn69
https://www.hbo.com/vice
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007mplc