Local TV and Radio News Sites Publish 8.2% of English-Language News but Only 2.8% of the Coverage About AI Search

Summary

Picture a roofing contractor in Toledo who watches the evening news on his local station and reads its website. He has heard nothing there about customers asking ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode which roofer to call. If his local news has not mentioned it, he figures it is not happening in his town yet.

We compared local news with everyone else. Using GDELT, we identified 1,257 US local TV and radio news sites by their call-sign domains, such as ksat.com or wral.com, and measured their share of all English-language news and of AI search coverage from January 2023 to September 2026.

Local stations publish 8.2% of English-language news in GDELT but just 2.8% of the coverage about AI search. Their share is growing, from 1.2% in 2023 to 3.9% in 2026, but most of what they run is shared wire or station-group stories, and those stories lean negative.

What we measured

Local broadcast sites are domains that look like US station call signs: a K or W followed by two or three letters, sometimes a channel number or TV, FM or AM. We checked the 150 largest by volume and removed national or non-station sites with call-sign-shaped domains (wkrb13.com, wwd.com, wnd.com, wsj.com). We counted every English-language GDELT article from these sites to get their share of all news, and compared it with their share of AI search articles.

AI search articles are those whose URL slug names Google AI Overviews, AI Mode or SGE, ChatGPT search or SearchGPT, Perplexity, or AI search in general. We also compared local share of all AI articles (any slug naming AI, ChatGPT, chatbots or similar) to separate interest in AI generally from interest in AI search. We looked at Patch, the hyperlocal network, separately; it had no AI search articles matched by slug.

Local stations under-cover AI search by about two thirds

Local broadcast sites' share of each type of coverage, January 2023 to September 2026:

Local stations cover AI in general at 0.61 times their usual share and AI search at 0.35 times. Readers who get their news mainly from local stations have seen far less about AI search than readers of national and tech outlets.

The local share is growing every year

Local broadcast share by year:

Local AI search articles rose from 13 in 2023 to 58 in 2024, 170 in 2025 and 160 in the first nine months of 2026. The gap with the stations' share of all news (about 9% in 2025 and 2026) is narrowing but still large.

Local coverage is mostly syndicated, more negative and less about Google

Local broadcast sites compared with all other outlets, English-language AI search articles:

Only 83 distinct headlines account for the 401 local articles, published across 235 stations. The most repeated were wire stories about a regulator accusing an AI search engine of consumer deception, an AI search company's bid involving TikTok, and a warning that Google's AI search poses risks to children.

What this means

Many of your customers get news from local TV and radio sites, and those sites have said little about AI search, much of it negative. That means customers may be using AI answers without much thought about where the recommendations come from, and may trust them. It also means local businesses rarely hear about the shift from the outlets they follow. Owners who want to get ahead can start learning SEO for AI search now, while many local competitors have not.

Do not wait for local news to tell you whether AI tools recommend your business. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google for the service you offer in your town and see who comes up. Our free AI visibility audit runs those checks across the questions your customers ask, and it costs nothing whether or not you later want generative engine optimization services.

Limits

Call-sign domains are a stand-in for local broadcast outlets. Some local stations use other domains (such as news-brand names) and are counted as other outlets, and a few call-sign-shaped domains may not be stations.

Local newspapers are not separated out here, because their domains do not follow a pattern we can identify reliably.

We matched URL slugs, so local stories that discuss AI search only in the text are missed.

Comparisons use English-language articles only. The other-outlets group includes non-US English outlets.

Frequently asked questions

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