To oversimplify the results of the local TV news November sweeps, there's really good news for KSL-Ch. 5 and really bad news for KTVX-Ch. 4.
But, as always, most of the numbers are open to interpretation and can be spun in just about any direction you'd like.
There's no disputing the winner and loser of the all-important late-night news competition, however. Ch. 5, which has been trending down consistently for more than a year, reversed those declines. Not only did the station dominate (as usual), it jumped a whopping 1.8 ratings points at 10 p.m. Monday-Friday when compared with November 1999.
(One caveat, however — November 1999 was a dreadful sweeps across the board for all the local stations.)
Ch. 4, on the other hand, declined a whopping 1.5 ratings point year-to-year. That not only put the station 25 percent behind second-place KUTV-Ch. 2 (which was up a tenth of a rating point), but it put Ch. 4 into a tie for third-place with KSTU-Ch. 13's 9 p.m. newscast Monday-Friday. (See accompanying box.)
The numbers change somewhat when you look at a seven-day average. Sunday-Saturday, Ch. 5 averaged (very roughly) 116,600 homes for its late newscasts; Ch. 2 averaged 73,300; Ch. 4 averaged 61,100; and Ch. 13 averaged 59,000.
Ch. 4's 10 p.m. newscast was actually being watched in some 15,000 fewer homes than its 6 p.m. newscast, which is not a good sign. Exactly why is an impossible question to answer — factors range from network lead-ins to weather to election coverage ad nauseam — but the immediate reaction to the anchor change at 10 p.m. (Scott Swan in for Randall Carlisle) is certainly less positive than the station would have liked.
But the anchor on the late newscast can't be blamed for all of Ch. 4's problems. The station is running last at 5:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. And it's not all bad news — the 5:30 p.m. newscast held steady from a year ago, and the 6 p.m. program was up six-tenths of a rating point.
And Ch. 5 had lots of other things to be happy about besides just the late news. The station was up 93 percent at 6 a.m. (albeit the small numbers involved — from a 1.4 rating to a 2.7 — distort that percentage); 48 percent at noon; 20 percent at 6 p.m.; 17 percent at 6:30 p.m.; and 18 percent at 5 p.m.
Ch. 2, which has re-established itself as the definite No. 2 in late news in the past couple of years, continues to lead in the early morning and noon news (showing growth for both time periods) and was up a strong 20 percent between 5-6 p.m.
And they've got to be happy at Ch. 13 as well. Tying Ch. 4 in the Monday-Friday late-news ratings is no small achievement for a station that struggled mightily for years with a news operation it built from scratch.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com