I think calling NYC a lazy market is unfair. Anybody who has worked in that market knows the lazy do not survive, whether as an individual or a station.
What IS true, is that the business and competition have changed. First, prime-access syndication brings in a lot of dollars. Even the non-King World shows bring in heavy revenue.
New York is a news hungry market. Counting Westchester, New Jersey and Long Island, there are six daily newspapers, two all news radio stations and two 24-hour cable news operations. Those cable news channels are enormously popular. Just because you don’t see them on the Nielsen breakdowns doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Just try to find a New Yorker who doesn’t watch them, even if only occasionally. Then add the classic English language broadcast stations and the two Hispanic stations, which all have respectable audiences. And then there are the websites and apps. News hungry New Yorkers are already finding their news in those places throughout the day. And don’t forget: most stations are starting morning news at 4:30AM. Some have expanded midday news to an hour and are starting evening shows at 4:00PM. You didn’t see that 20 or 30 years ago. By 7:00, viewers are ready to move on. And, if they do want more, NY1 and News12 are there. That’s not a lazy news market. Name one other market in the country that produces that much product each day.
But, perhaps more importantly, every station has down-sized significantly since the days of news after 6:00. Back then, stations had news staffs as much as 40% bigger than they are today. Many more people to produce less total product than you will find now. Today, stations barely have enough people to do what they’re doing. There are probably hundreds of posts in this website alone about being stretched so thin and doing more with less. Could stations hire more people to do more evening newscasts? Well, they could, but stations haven’t been in the staff-expansion mode anywhere, in years. And, as history has shown, prime-access newscasts against Wheel & Jeopardy tend not to be very successful or profitable. Those are just cold, hard business office realities. Stations aren’t printing profit dollars in the basement like they used to.
Comparing news programming in 2018 to news programming in 1988 and thinking all things are equal, is off base.