An ongoing local TV news story is the descent of KARE’s Nielsen ratings. The February “sweeps” tell the tale: a news operation that dominated the advertiser-coveted 25-to-54-year-old demographic for decades didn’t win a single weekday time slot.
I should caution that these numbers are preliminary, and don’t include the final day of the ratings period (Wednesday).
The big winner is WCCO, which won every four-way 25/54 competition except the 4:30 and 5 a.m. wee hours (when it finished second). Counting all TV-owning households, WCCO won every time slot.
While KARE is dragged down by fourth-place NBC, first-place CBS lifts WCCO. For example, at 10 p.m. — where Frank Vascellaro replaced Don Shelby — WCCO’s rating rose 20 percent from a year ago. That’s a bit behind its 9 p.m. lead-ins, up 26 percent in the 9:45 p.m. quarter-hour.
Still, even WCCO’s pre-prime gains were huge: up 50 percent at 6 a.m.; 62 percent at 5 p.m.; and 53 percent at 6 p.m.
Big caveat for year-over-year comparisons: Last February, NBC had the Winter Olympics. This year, KARE’s 9:45 p.m. lead-in dropped 64 percent. The 10 p.m. newscast managed to build on its lead-in rating (all TV-owning households) and share (TVs turned on) — the only station to do so.
Another point in KARE’s defense: if you move off Monday-Friday, and consider, say, Sunday-Thursday (a key frame for many news executives, since Sunday night can be considered the beginning of the newswatching week), KARE beat WCCO by 0.07 ratings points. For all seven days, KARE wins by 0.3. But in both cases, WCCO’s number is up while KARE’s is down.
Fox9 also had a noteworthy weekday surge; ratings were up 57 percent at 5 a.m. and 73 percent at 6 a.m.
Generally speaking, KSTP’s ratings fell, sometimes in single digits, though the station remains the 25-to-54 champ at 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. As for sibling station KSTC-Channel 45, its numbers went up, sometimes doubling, but still small at a 1-3 share and sub-0.5 rating.
Here are the numbers — all 25-54, Monday-Friday, except where noted. Share is first, rating in parentheses:
4:30 a.m. Sunday-Thursday
1. KSTP: 9 (0.66)
2. WCCO: 9 (0.61)
3. Fox9: 6 (0.44)
4. KARE: 4 (0.26)
It’s basically the first year for full-throated competition in this time slot. How many Twin Cities 25-to-54-year-old households watch local news at this wee hour? About 2 percent.
5 a.m.
1. KSTP: 13 (1.2)
2. WCCO: 12 (1.16)
3. Fox9: 11 (1.01)
4. KARE: 9 (0.84)
Now about 4 percent of those households are watching. And local-news viewing in this time slot is up about 5 percent from a year ago.
6 a.m.
1. WCCO: 15 (2.06)
2. KARE: 14 (2)
3. Fox9: 14 (1.99)
4. KSTP: 11 (1.47)
A year ago, KARE was the winner, with Fox9 last. We’re up to 7.5 percent of households tuned in, with viewership down about 1 percent from a year ago.
5 p.m.
1. WCCO: 14 (2.84)
2. KARE: 12 (2.32)
3. KSTP: 8 (1.63)
4. Fox9: 7 (1.32)
WCCO is coming off the 4 p.m. Oprah show, a huge advantage it will lose later this year when the talk goddess leaves over-the-air TV. Still, WCCO’s rating is up 62 percent, a bigger gain than Oprah’s 44 percent. The loser? KSTP, down 18 percent. KARE is down 3 percent, its smallest drop of the news day.
Overall, 8 percent of households are tuned in – not a lot more than at 6 a.m. However, local-news viewership is up 7.8 percent from a year ago.
6 p.m.
1. WCCO: 12 (3.14)
2. KARE: 10 (2.66)
3. KSTP: 8 (2.08)
Here, too, WCCO has swiped the demographic crown from KARE, gaining 58 percent from a year ago while KARE lost 2 percent. KSTP is down 14 percent. Overall viewership is up about 5 percent in this time slot.
10 p.m.
1. WCCO: 14 (5.13)
2. KARE: 14 (4.93)
3. KSTP: 8 (2.91)
4. Fox9: 6 (2.26)
This is the big local-news enchilada, but roughly one in seven Twin Cities TV-owning 25-to-54-year-old households watch local news — a figure so low old-timers can only shake their heads. (For all households, it’s about one in four.) It’s hard to make year-to-year comparisons because of the Olympics effect, but viewership is down 10 percent from a year ago.
By the way, were Fox9’s 9 p.m. news on this list, it would beat out KSTP with a 9 share, 3.66 percent of TV-owning households.
Apparently, ‘CCO-TV is doing better without Shelby than with him.
I’m in the nearly 86 percent of those 25-54 who don’t watch local news. I’m sorry newsies but you offer nothing that I want to watch. I get my sports from on-line or ESPN, all I want from the weather is about 60 seconds telling me what it’s going to be like in the next few days, and the news is dreadful. I don’t care if someone got hit by a care in Brooklyn Park or another bank robbery at a Cub TCF.
I agree the oldersters are shocked by this. When I told my mother that I watch the Daily Show at 10:00 she exclaimed: What about the news!?!
Well, I may be older than Dean, but I agree that TV is NOT worth watching when “news” masquerades as the latest interview with a fallen network regular like Charlie Sheen. Is that why WCCO cancels the scheduled airing of an interview with a “regular” person like Steve Fiscus, who has dedicated years of his life to a cause like obtaining “presumptive” VA disability benefits for military veterans exposed to Agent Orange? Because it’s “ratings week” and viewers prefer to be titillated by the rants of a recognized entertainer that has “fallen off their rocker?”
“at 10 p.m. — where Frank Vascellaro replaced Don Shelby — WCCO’s rating rose 20 percent from a year ago”
Based upon this ingformation, if Shelby were a professional basketball player, the T-Wolves would be interested.
Besides CBS prime time and the Oprah Effect, I’d be more interested in hearing if WCCO’s news ratings are having a positive effect on “The Early Show” or Katie Couric’s evening news locally. Or do folks just flee elsewhere when those two programs come on?
About those ratings (particularly 10 pm) : “viewership is down 10 percent from a year ago.” I’d like to see a chart of the loss of viewers year-on-year from the 70s on.
Also – we (you) pay a lot of attention to these ratings, but what do they *really* mean? The stations are virtually indistinguishable, especially to the layman, if not the media *expert*. The big story to me is how irrelevant these dinosaurs are, and yet how they persist in lumbering around the landscape, at least for now. They fight for viewership among themselves using methods that seem illogical, to say the least, when things like the lead-in show most likely control how many viewers they get, or who has the hottest anchor.