Tonight's Big Story: News Viewers Missing!

"The fact is, local newscasts aren't adapted to that," says Allen, the author of "News Is People," a history of the local TV news business. "Stations might want to look inside their own newscasts and ask if the way they're covering stories in a way that fits with how modern viewers watch TV. People no longer sit there and watch 20 little stories at a time."

Local executives, though, say the news has been gradually evolving. Local news is faster and harder than it was a decade or more ago, says WJLA's Lord, with more live and "breaking" stories. Gone, he says, are the softer human-interest stories, such as "the local chainsaw artist who is carving a sculpture in his back yard. You're not going to see that anymore. All of our newscasts are much more immediate. It's a combination of changing [viewer] tastes and competitive forces. People want immediacy."

WUSA's Horlick thinks that localism is the key competitive advantage for stations amid intensified competition and changing technology.

"Yahoo and AOL can't compete with pure local broadcasters, or newspapers," he says. They just don't have the knowledge of the community and the resources to cover it."

Horlick echoes something that his counterpart at WRC, Michael Jack, says: The future isn't just local TV news, but news delivered in any form the viewer wants it -- via the Internet, an iPod, a PDA or even via two-way digital TV (just as soon as someone invents it).

"Over the next few years, we're going to see a blurring of the TV and the computer and the mobile device," Horlick says. "We've got to be able to deliver information over multiple devices. Our job today is to get our skill sets in order so that when we reach that tipping point, we're ready. . . .

"We're not just talking about a different kind of TV news. We're talking about a cultural revolution in the information business."

Falling ratings? No problem. Just look to the future: "Do I think the pendulum will swing back to us?" Horlick asks. "Yes, I certainly do."

Staff writer John Maynard contributed to this report.