It is a reasonable instinct built on an outdated premise. New research says the 18 to 34 audience never left local news. They just stopped arriving through the front door, and most media plans are still only buying the front door.

Start with the number that surprises people

Researchers at Northeastern University's Reinventing Local TV News Project, working with SmithGeiger, surveyed 1,012 adults ages 18 to 34. Ninety-one percent get news from at least one platform every week, and more than half of weekly users go to their primary platforms daily.

Then it gets interesting for anyone buying local media.

Fifty-five percent of that age group still watch a local news program on television in a given week. Sixty-one percent actively use a local station's app or weather app. That second number is the one worth sitting with. More young adults touch a station's owned digital product each week than watch the newscast, and both figures land ahead of Reddit, email newsletters, and national news apps and websites.

The audience is not missing. It is distributed.

The clip is the doorway, not the destination

The most useful finding for advertisers is what happens after a young adult watches a local news video on social.

Ninety-four percent go look for more information. Eighty-seven percent like or share it. Eighty-one percent watch a longer version on the station's app or website. Seventy-eight percent make a point of catching the full newscast on television.

That is not fleeting attention. That is a documented path from a vertical video to a station app to a living room, running in the opposite direction of everything the "young people scroll past everything" argument assumes.

For a media plan, the implication is direct. A station's social, app, website, streaming, and broadcast inventory are not five competing options where you pick the cheapest per impression. They are one route a customer travels, and buying a single stop on it means paying for the setup while someone else gets the close.

Why connection is the real product

The research also measured something advertisers rarely get to see, which is how connected these consumers feel to the place they live.

Across all respondents, 33% said they feel completely connected to their local community. Among daily local TV news viewers, that jumped to 49%. Among people who visit a local station's website daily, it reached 54%. Nearly three quarters of respondents said they trust local news more than their other sources.

Read that as an attention quality metric. The same person is measurably more invested in their community on the days they are with local news, and a brand that shows up in that environment is borrowing that posture rather than interrupting it.

This is the part that does not show up in a CPM comparison, and it is the entire reason a Ross Township roofer, a Robinson auto group, and a Squirrel Hill restaurant all still find local media worth the money.

More research is coming next month

This is not a one study story. Magid is presenting new research at TVNewsCheck's Local TV Strategies conference on October 21, and its early read points the same direction. Magid's chief operating officer, Jaime Spencer, has said younger consumers appear as tethered to news content as older ones, and that what drives them is a hunger for news and for connection with the people around them.

Two independent research efforts arriving at the same conclusion in the same year is worth more than either one alone.

Three ways to act on this

Buy the path, not the placement. If your goal is reach against adults 18 to 34, a plan that includes station social, app, streaming, and broadcast will follow that consumer across the day. A plan that includes only one of them meets them once and hopes.

Treat the app as premium, not remnant. The station app is the highest intent local environment most advertisers have never specifically asked for. People open it on purpose, usually because they want weather, traffic, or a school closing, which means they are in a decision-making posture when your message lands.

Give social something worth following. The research is clear that young viewers act after they watch. Creative built for that behavior, meaning a clear next step, a reason to search, an offer worth screenshotting, converts a view into a visit.

The takeaway

The next time a plan comes back with the line about reaching younger customers somewhere else, the honest answer is that they are already here. They are watching, opening the app, sharing the clip, and feeling more connected to Pittsburgh while they do it.

The only question is whether your brand is part of that trip or waiting at a stop they already passed.

Connect with Hearst Pittsburgh to see what the 18 to 34 audience actually looks like in this market, across broadcast, streaming, and station digital.

Sources

• Redefining local: How young Americans engage with television news across platforms (The Journalist's Resource / Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, June 4, 2026) — https://journalistsresource.org/media/local-tv-how-young-americans-engage-across-platforms/

• Full report, Shorenstein Center — https://shorensteincenter.org/resource/redefining-local-how-young-americans-engage-with-television-news-across-platforms/

• New Magid Research At Local TV Strategies: Young News Consumers Crave Community (TVNewsCheck, Sept 9, 2026) — https://tvnewscheck.com/journalism/article/new-magid-research-at-local-tv-strategies-young-news-consumers-crave-community/