At a recent event, Mort Marcus, co-president of Lionsgate's Debmar-Mercury, said things may not be so bad.

For example, in November 2022, ratings for the 9 AM - 5 PM period were down just 2% versus national TV prime-time, which was off 17%.

Local TV stations still depend on the nationally available syndicated programming to an extent -- talk shows, court shows and the like -- in getting some value.

But many are taking nothing for chance, looking to expand their locally produced TV news content -- programming where they can control all the ad inventory versus national syndicated programming, where stations must share ad inventory/revenue with major TV-studio based media companies.

Always rising political advertising works better with all that TV news content for many outlets.

Still, dependency on political advertising might leave them in a quandary about only having a narrower programming direction.

So what does this mean for syndication producers now?

Perhaps only to look at cutbacks, for example, on very expensive $20 million-a-year talk shows in favor of $5 million- or $6 million-a-year productions.

Right now, syndication looks stagnant. Ad revenue for syndication was estimated to be $2.384 billion in 2021, according to media agency Zenith Media, with revenue projected to be flat for 2022 and 2023.

TV stations are also looking to push out more of this content in favor of returning sports programming to broadcast. Gray Television and E.W. Scripps, among others, have been heading in this direction. 

This comes as local TV sports consumers have been slowly abandoning high-priced regional cable TV sports network content.

At best, those RSNs may be looking at a smaller pool of TV consumers who have no problem paying $25 a month to watch their favorite local sports teams.

Much of the still highly rated TV content on syndication remains with off-network sitcoms. At the same time, that content continues to see more viewers being siphoned off  to premium streaming platforms such as Paramount+, Peacock, and now Max for those shows.

TV station executives know this drill -- but they still want to offer viewers some choice and variety on their programming schedule.

Wall-to-wall TV news coverage may not seem a good way to go -- your wheel of fortune is mostly in name only.