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Local ratings results for the November sweeps
Put the broom away, sweeps results are in.
It was an interesting ratings period, with numbers from KEYE’s new morning and afternoon experiments included for the first time. The CBS affiliate replaced its morning news program with a simulcast of local Mix 94.7 radio team JB and Sandy, splitting up its former morning anchor team. KEYE sent Fred Cantu to its Telemundo channel, and co-anchor Michelle Valles (who must have been thrilled to hear competitor Oprah Winfrey announce her retirement) went to the station’s new afternoon lifestyle program, “We Are Austin Live.” Neither that program nor the morning radio simulcast can be considered a ratings success, but KEYE director of creative services Jerry Wagley says the station is satisfied so far.
“We’re really happy with (“We Are Austin Live”) and we’re really happy with the direction that it’s going,” Wagley says. He calls both new shows “long-term plays,” and adds that it was expected each would take time to build an audience, being new and different — at least to the Austin market. Of the JB and Sandy show, Wagley explains that “time will tell if it’s going to be a ratings bonanza, but we like that it’s working for us and that it’s different content.”
Time will tell, as well, if NBC’s decision to put Jay Leno on 5 nights a week as a 9 p.m. lead-in to local newscasts will continue to hurt its local affiliate, KXAN, which has seen the ratings for its 10 p.m. newscast drop more than 31 percent since May.
KXAN general manager Eric Lassberg calls a strong lead-in “critical” and says Leno’s poor ratings are “to our disadvantage.” But he points out that NBC often placed 3rd in the 9-10 p.m. time slot well before Leno’s show began in September — Jay’s just dragged those ratings down by another 26.5 percent. The station is responding by using all of its promotional tools to point viewers to the newscast and investing in outside media to get the word out. And now that sweeps are past and the other networks’ shows are going into reruns, Lassberg sees a real chance for Leno’s numbers to improve. “Part of the strategy for Leno,” he says, “is that it was a 52-week aggregate play.”
The station fared better in the mornings, taking sole possession of the top slot it shared with FOX affiliate KTBC a year ago.
KXAN shouldn’t be the only station worried about the 10 p.m. slot: all local network affiliates’ late night newscast numbers are down over a year ago, one of them (KTBC’s ‘Fox 7 News at 9’) by more than 28 percent. ABC affiliate KVUE retains the top spot in the 5, 6 and 10:00 p.m. local newscast slots.
Here are selected November overnight Nielsen ratings (a rating is 1 percent of the 678,730 TV households in the Austin viewing area.) We included the 9 p.m. hour to show the rating of KTBC’s 9 p.m. newscast as well as the numbers for “The Jay Leno Show,” and the 4 p.m. hour to show the rating for “We Are Austin Live” (in that hour, where there are two hyphenated numbers the first is the first half of the hour and the second is the remaining half). The leader in each time slot is italicized.
6 a.m. local news
KXAN 2.9
KVUE 2.7
KTBC 1.7
KEYE 0.7
4 p.m.
KVUE (‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’) 4.5
KXAN (‘Jeopardy!’) 2.5-3.4
KTBC (‘Judge Judy’) 2.1-2.2
KEYE (‘We Are Austin Live’) 1.1
KNVA (‘Tyra Show’) 0.6
5 p.m. local news
KVUE 5.6
KXAN 3.8
KTBC 2.4
KEYE (’Insider’) 1.4
KNVA (‘Everybody Loves Raymond’) 1.0
5:30 p.m. network news
ABC 6.3
NBC 4.4
CBS 2.1
6 p.m. local news
KVUE 5.6
KXAN 4.4
KEYE 2.8
KTBC (‘TMZ’) 2.3
KNVA (‘Friends’) 1.9
9 p.m.
CBS 8.9
ABC 7.0
NBC (’The Jay Leno Show’) 3.6
KTBC (‘Fox 7 News at 9’) 3.3
The CW 0.7
10 p.m. local news
KVUE 5.9
KEYE 5.0
KXAN 3.7
KTBC (‘The Simpsons’) 2.5
KNVA (‘The Office’) 0.9
Source: Nielsen Media Research
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment Categories: Ratings
Comments
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By Dale Roe
December 24, 2009 11:04 AM | Link to this
Hi Jethro! As I wrote in response to another commenter, KEYE's Telemundo digital station is too new to have individualized ratings, so they could not be provided nor reported on. They should be available for the next sweeps period. I am curious, too!
By Jethro
December 23, 2009 9:26 PM | Link to this
As a former fan of Retro on 42.2 I was wondering how Telemundo fared on that channel.
By John
December 7, 2009 10:26 AM | Link to this
Here's a tip for you, Jack: dictating that others "Proof Read" while failing to do so yourself diminishes the validity of your comments.
By Dale Roe
December 6, 2009 6:43 PM | Link to this
Hi, Jack. Thanks for commenting! We did not forget about the new Spanish stations and we *do* have it together. If you'd have read the other comments, you would have seen that, as I wrote below, Univision was contacted and declined to provide numbers. KEYE's Telemundo digital station is too new to have individualized ratings, so they could not be provided nor reported on. They should be available for the next sweeps period.
By Jack
December 6, 2009 5:13 PM | Link to this
PS: Statesman where is the new Spanish TV stations? Did you forget about them? reall? Come on Statesman get it together.
By Jack
December 6, 2009 5:12 PM | Link to this
KXAN is not slipping because of Jay Leno. Management should take a closer look at it's failing news image. Bad reporting on air an on the web. You need to step it up KXAN. Get back to the basics of covering the big stories. Here is a suggestion - "Proof read".
By Dale Roe
December 3, 2009 2:22 PM | Link to this
Hi, BR. Thanks for commenting.
The numbers reported are 100 percent accurate. The Nielsen Company no longer provides ratings information directly to journalists; we have to get it from the stations themselves. Univision was contacted and declined to provide numbers (make of that what you will; I will not speculate). KEYE's Telemundo digital station is too new to have individualized ratings, so they could not be provided nor reported on. They should be available for the next sweeps period. Thanks for reading. I hope that helps!
--Dale.
By BR
December 3, 2009 1:18 PM | Link to this
How can you give accurate ratings when the Spanish Television Networks are not included? The rating system is so biased, it should include "ALL" television programing or include that "this rating scheme is prejudice and does not include All Television programming."
By Dave
December 3, 2009 12:28 PM | Link to this
How can you condider we are Ausin live to be satisfactory when reruns of Judge Judy are kicking it's (expletive) ???
By BJ
December 2, 2009 2:29 PM | Link to this
It's really difficult for me to find something worth watching in the mornings. The JB and Sandy show is painful to watch and I don't care for Olga on the KVUE morning show, so I have switched from KVUE to KXAN since the summer. According to the ratings, others seem to agree with me.