Evolution of local television audiences: The case of La Xarxa before and after the pandemic

Local television managers have always been aware that the impact of local television on their reference community was just as large or even larger than that of wider-reaching media, but the difficulty of measuring their audiences did not make it possible to test this impact quantitatively. The analysis of data from the connected TVs (HbbTV) of La Xarxa makes it possible to start quantifying the impact of local TVs accurately. This study has selected significant moments in the news from January 2020 to January 2021 in the context of the following three periods resulting from health measures aimed to prevent the spread of COVID-19: the months preceding the lockdown, the lockdown itself, and the start of the so-called new normality. This study highlights the finding that audiences turn to local television in times of crises of territorial proximity or when such crises may have a significant impact on their daily lives.