It was a photo finish for KSL 5 News and KUTV 2News in the race to dominate local late news. The Nielsen household ratings for the November sweeps period were released this week and are almost too close to call between KSL and KUTV's late newscasts.
Almost.
DuringMonday through Friday, KSL and KUTV's late newscasts both come in with a 10.5 rating. That basically means that every night, on average, both newscasts got 100,164 households out of the 953,950 households that have TVs in Utah.
But is that the full late-news story?
In Neilsen's full-week ratings — Monday through Sunday — KSL got 10.2 and KUTV got 10.3. But KUTV and KTVX give its Saturday late news a different name, which excludes that lower performing show from Nielsen's ratings. A real full-week, day-to-day comparison would require adding that excluded KUTV Saturday late news program back into the mix.
A real Monday-through-Sunday ratings comparison has KSL still at 10.2, but KUTV drops to a 9.7 rating — an average nightly difference between the competitors of 4,768 households.
So take your pick. Monday through Friday is a tie, but if you add the weekends, KSL is still ahead. By the weekend measure, KSTU Fox 13 News is in third place (6.1) with KTVX ABC 4 News bringing up the rear (3.8).
"We've been the No. 1 late local news station, for the most part, for probably 35 years," said Con Psarras, vice president and managing news director of KSL Television. "If you are No. 1 in everything but 10 p.m., you are not going to be considered No. 1."
But there are other ways of looking at the competition between local newscasts. KUTV 2 News is still the clear winner in the morning race. It has a 4.0 rating for its 6 a.m. program, versus KSTU Fox 13's 2.6, KSL's 2.0 and KTVX ABC 4's split 1.0 at 6 a.m. and 1.5 at 6:30 a.m. Jennifer Dahl, the news director for KUTV 2News, chalks up their morning success to Ron Bird and Mary Nickles, who are the longest-running news anchor team in the market, with 19 years together. She also credits the social media interaction with viewers on the show.
KSL still has the No. 1 spot at noon, but KUTV 2 has beaten them at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.
KUTV's Carlston said that KUTV and KSL's ratings for their weekday news programs, about 374,000 households watch KUTV news programs each day, versus about 296,000 households who watch KSL's news each day. "There really is a new leader in this market," he said. "Somebody that from the beginning newscast to the end is either No. 1, tied or a minute No. 2 position at noon … However you slice that up, someone's got more people tuning to them, and it happens to be us."
As a news release from KUTV 2 News, a CBS affiliate, points out, CBS prime-time television is No. 1 in the market, with 12 of the top 20 prime-time shows. NBC, which is KSL's affiliate, is the No. 4 network. "We've actually grown from November to November while NBC has shrunk," KSL's Psarras said. "There's a quantitative measurement and a qualitative measurement."
The quantitative measurement is, of course, the Neilsen ratings. The qualitative measurement, according to Psarras, is how the quality of the program attracts people to switch channels. Naturally, people who are watching a favorite prime-time show will tend to stick around when it is over at 10 p.m. to watch that channel's news. "Most of the people do not change channels," Psarras said. "You have to give them a reason to turn over and switch. We are very good at that. More than half of our viewership is choice selection: They select us; they don't just happen to be watching."
KUTV said they do pick up some viewers who switch over. KSL grows it audience share 111 percent as people change channels to watch its news program — which is the highest of any NBC affiliate in the nation.
KSL's Psarras gives KUTV its due: "KUTV has a very good product. They promote it extremely well. They have good quality people on the air, they do good work. They have a strong network."
KUTV's Carlston agrees, "They are a great competitor, and just like sports or business, you want great competitor."
"Good competition makes you stronger," Psarras said. "It's a daily battle."
e-mail: mdegroote@desnews.com
Editors note: The Deseret News and KSL-TV are part of Deseret Media Companies. Though they operate separately, they also coordinate on some news coverage. Personnel from KSL-TV were not involved in writing or editing this story.