“Misinformation is not like plumbing, a problem you fix. It is a social condition, like crime, that you must constantly monitor and adjust to.”

“Fake news” loves a crisis. It’s clear now that false information has played a role in recent events around the world from divisive elections to the COVID pandemic to the conflict roiling Israel and Gaza.

It is important to counter false claims and false narratives. And research now shows a lot more clarity about how to do this.

In a rather downbeat article in September 2023, The New York Times reported that “the momentum behind organizations that aim to combat online falsehoods has started to taper off.” It reported that the number of fact-checking operations around the world had “stagnated,” after rising from 11 in 2008 to 424 in 2022 and dropping slightly to 417 today.

Anyone who has followed the fate of the TV business in recent years could not be blamed for thinking the medium is dying.

Consumers have been shifting away from traditional or linear TV viewing that is watched in real time to streaming video, where they can watch what they want on demand. In 2023, streaming surpassed broadcast and cable TV viewing for the first time, according to Nielsen.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The local commercial broadcast television and radio industry generates $1.23 trillion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 2.52 million jobs through direct and stimulative effect on the American economy.

That’s the key takeaway from a new study from Woods & Poole Economics produced with support from BIA Advisory Services.

The analysis examines broadcasting’s impact on the economy through direct employment, its ripple effect on other industries and as an advertising medium for messaging consumers. Radio and television stations’ influence on the national economy, as well as information by state, is provided in the study, which was shared by the NAB late Thursday.

As national advertisers and agencies map out their 2024 media plans, Nielsen presented a deep dive on network radio for its clients on the buy and sell sides Wednesday. Using the media planning tool Nielsen Media Impact and data from the latest installment of its Audio Today series, the measurement giant showed how network radio can greatly expand a campaign’s reach and how it fits into the media plan.

To illustrate network radio’s ability to drive key campaign metrics, Nielsen showed how a Tier One national auto brand campaign that ran last year would have performed if 20% of the budget was spent on radio. Without radio in the mix, the $5 million one-month campaign using linear TV, connected TV and digital media reached 60.1% of the adults 25-54 target with a frequency of 4.0. It delivered 298,828,000 impressions at a $17 CPM. But when $1 million was reallocated to network radio, reach jumped to 75.5% with a frequency of 4.5, and 416,295,000 impressions were delivered at a $12 CPM.