Miami/Ft.Lauderdale market recently switched fully to people meters effectively ending the hoopla and hype surrounding sweeps months. Now we’ll have ratings fights year round, every day. But since hype here is the norm it shouldn’t get much louder and exciting than usual.
Posted on Fri, Mar. 05, 2004
TELEVISION
WFOR squeaks to top
WFOR-CBS 4 and WLTV-Univisión 23 regain narrow late-news leads in the winter Nielsen television ratings.
BY CHRISTINA HOAG
choag@herald.com
South Florida’s English-language TV ratings battle sharpened Thursday with the February Nielsen sweeps showing WFOR-CBS 4 squeaking by WTVJ-NBC 6 to regain the top 11 p.m. news slot Monday through Sunday.
Among Spanish-language stations, WSCV-Telemundo 51 lost the narrow late-news edge that it had gained in November over archrival WLTV-Univisión 23, which continued to dominate the overall South Florida market in news and other key day parts.
WSCV made up for the loss, however, by a surge in its weekday afternoon line-up of soap operas that shot it a full audience share point past WLTV.
At WFOR, the mood was celebratory.
”The network gave us a very nice prime-time platform, and we certainly capitalized on that,” said Michael Colleran, vice president and general manager of the CBS station, which maintained its top sign-on to sign-off ranking among English-language stations.
“We’ve been on every story, everywhere, every day.”
But WTVJ quickly pointed out that it’s still the late-news top dog Monday through Friday. That’s significant because CBS is the prime-time leader, said Betty Frazier, WTVJ research manager.
”That’s a big coup when you don’t have a prime-time lead-in. That means the audience is coming back,” she said.
A year ago, WFOR, which has a news partnership with The Herald, had a slim late-news lead Monday through Sunday, which WTVJ managed to beat later in the year. In this book, the two stations are an audience share point apart in the Monday-Sunday late-news slot.
WFOR is also giving early-news leader WSVN-FOX 7 a run for its money in the 5 and 5:30 p.m. slots, showing increases in both those newscasts while WSVN slipped.
The CBS station gained ground in the 6 p.m. slot as well, although WPLG-ABC 10 is hanging on to its No. 1 English-language spot for that newscast, which leads into top ranked English-language ABC World News at 6:30 p.m.
WTVJ appears to have made the right move in switching the limping The Rick Sanchez Show with Andi Tillis from its 4 p.m. time slot, where it struggled against Oprah (CBS) and Judge Judy (Fox), to 10 a.m.
The show has seen a 33 percent rise in ratings and a 100 percent boost in audience share, Frazier said. The talk program still lags behind Fox’s Family Feud, ABC’s Maury Povich and CBS’ Guiding Light, however.
Meters lower the stakes in Miami-Fort Lauderdale sweeps
By Tom Jicha
TV/Radio Writer
Posted March 5 2004
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Television ratings periods aren’t what they used to be, but the ratings for South Florida TV stations are.
More than half the country, including the Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach markets, now gets daily metered ratings, so the sweeps months of November, February and May no longer pack the importance they once did in setting quarterly advertising rates, the reason for their existence. The networks, whose owned stations are all in metered markets, have responded by cutting back on big-ticket events, which used to make sweeps months the highlights of the season. During February, there was not a single network miniseries and the only TV movies were in slots where they air normally.
It didn’t matter in Miami-Fort Lauderdale, where leadership in the most important time periods has varied only slightly in recent years.
Spanish language WLTV-Ch. 23 once again led the market in dinnertime and late news, prime time and in the overall sign-on to sign-off category.
Among English language stations, WSVN-Ch. 7 held onto its lead in early morning news; WFOR-Ch. 4 continues to reign supreme in midday news; WPLG-Ch. 10 is again No. 1 at 6 p.m. and WTVJ-Ch. 6 repeated its win from November in late news, Monday through Friday. When weekend newscasts are included, WFOR moves slightly ahead.
Buoyed by the popularity of CBS programming, WFOR also took over the lead in prime time and moved to the top in sign-on to sign-off.
Palm Beach stations
The same situation prevailed in Palm Beach, where movement among stations traditionally has been glacial, regardless of extraordinary events or time of year.
As usual, NBC affiliate WPTV-Ch. 5 was No. 1 in most time periods. However, WPEC-Ch. 12, Channel 5’s only real competitor, was No. 1 with CBS shows in the glamour division of prime time, and closed the gap on the leader in some other key slots during February.
WPEC also held onto its lead in midday news, helped substantially by the lead-in from The Price Is Right, which more than doubles the ratings of its closest rival.
Otherwise it was another strong book for WPTV, which won every other significant news time period and held onto its lead in the overall sign-on to sign-off category.
One important break in the domination enjoyed by the two leaders came in the 7-8 p.m. hour, where the potent duo of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy drove ABC affiliate WPBF-Ch. 25 to the top.
Nevertheless, WPBF could not manage even half the overall ratings of the two leaders. WFLX-Ch. 29 and WTVX-Ch. 34 were even further back.
Tom Jicha can be reached at tjicha@sun-sentinel.com.
