Kareem Johnson | A Reporter's Notes

Here are the May 2010 Sweep Results for St. Louis; Where available I’m  providing the numbers from May 2009 for comparison.  Status Quo for the most part, but  KDNL is doing better in overall ratings, KMOV is down everywhere, and KSDK retains the overall news lead, with KTVI nearly tying them in weekly averages.  We could be seeing KTVI become the overall leader in the market. The last time KTVI led in sweep ratings was when they were an ABC affiliate.  It proves that consistency works.  KMOV and KSDK need to take notice. Keep your news team consistent, focus on the fundamentals of journalism, and the viewers will watch.

KDNL has a unique opportunity to reintroduce it’s news image if it wants to.  ABC’s schedule is doing respectable in the ratings locally, and could provide a solid lead-in for a newscast.  It’s time for a news presence on KDNL. Onward to the numbers.

Daytime:

Evening/Prime/Late after the Bump:

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Los Angeles — The TVSpy message boards are atwitter at the removal of St. Louis-native Victoria Recano’s picture and bio removal from Tribune’s KTLA’s website. KTLA is a sister station to KPLR in St. Louis.

Recano, 34, started her TV career in St. Louis as part of Team 11 at KPLR-TV at the age of 15. then owned by Koplar Communications.  She later worked as reporter at KPLR.  Her picture on KTLA’s site has been replaced with KDNL-alum Derrin Horton. More after the break.

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November 2009 Sweep Ratings for the sweep days from October 29 to November 25, 2009. Commentary follows the prime time numbers.

Daytime:

Evening/Late after the Bump:

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Via Gail Pennnington @ stltoday:

Ratings from the recently ended November sweeps show KMOV (Channel 4) in first place at 10 p.m. by 2.3 ratings points and 4 share points over KSDK (Channel 5). KMOV also won last November’s sweeps, but by a smaller margin.

This year, KSDK was dragged down by Jay Leno at 9 p.m. Leno averaged a 4.6 rating and 7 percent audience share during the month. From that meager lead-in, KSDK still managed an 8.3 rating and 15 share. Last November, NBC’s 9 p.m. shows gave KSDK an 11 rating and 16 share as a lead-in to the 10 p.m. news.

KMOV, with an average 11.4 rating and 18 share as a lead-in from CBS, finished the month with a 10.6 rating and 19 share.

(”Rating” represents 1 percent of the St. Louis population, or just over 12,000. “Share” refers to the percentage of television sets in use that are tuned to a particular program.)

Sign-on to sign-off, KTVI (Channel 2) is the No. 1 station with both adults 18-49 and adults 25-54.

No numbers for KPLR; I’ll dig that up, and post a nice chart (if possible).

DTV Station Status (Update):

The digital transition happened on Friday morning at 12:01 am. The chart show’s the following stations that have DTV facilities.  A few are not on-air, including some stations that are currently low-power analog.

 *WRBU does not broadcast My Network TV in 720p HD.

KPTN (7), KDTL (16), & KUMO (51) are currently still on – air in analog broadcasting. 

May 2009 Sweep Ratings for the sweep days from April 23 to May 20, 2009. Commentary follows the prime time numbers.

Daytime:

Evening/Prime/Late after the Bump:

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Hunt Valley, MD — Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner locally of KDNL-TV (“ABC30″), posted at first quarter loss of $85.7 million , or $1.06 a share. The Baltimore Business Journal reports Sinclair’s earnings from a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Excluding a non-cash charge of $130.1 million, the Hunt Valley-based television station owner earned $15.2 million, or 19 cents a share, for the three month period ended March 31. It posted a gain of $15 million, or 17 cents a share, for the first quarter of 2008. (Baltimore Business Journal 5/11)

Sinclair (NASDAQ: SBGI), the owner of 58 TV stations in 35 markets also said that earnings also declined to $154.7 million in the first quarter of 2009, compared with $186.7 million for the first quarter of 2008, citing declining local and national ad revenue, despite 2008 being an election year.

DTV Status for Major Stations:

KUMO-LP/LD is not included, but will broadcast on Channel 10, serving as the region’s lone VHF digital station when it signs on.

This chart will be updated as necessary.

If you’re tired of seeing DTV transition commercials, it’s not over; you’ll have to wait a few months. The transition commercials are being rejiggered  for the new date: June 12. The House of Representatives joined the US Senate in moving the DTV deadline to June 12, 264-158, after businesses spent millions of dollars on transition commercials trumpeting February 17. Maybe the networks should ask for bailout money, too.

If you’re wondering why the big day is moving, well, it’s because a few million people are either unaware a change was coming, unable to make the change, or didn’t care.  Be sure to tell your congressperson to move Thanksgiving or Christmas when you’re running behind on either of those holidays.  It would make about as much sense. Watching the cheesy NAB-produced commercials and asinine questions to TV stations during their “Let’s cover the DTV transition instead of actual news” segments, you might be tempted to do something else: turn the TV off. Permanently. 

Well, you’ve got to live through it for 4 more months. 

There is general agreement that the public is generally unprepared for DTV. Unfortunately, the public is usually unprepared for lot of things (see: any holiday). 

As the Post-Dispatch’s Gail Pennington said her Tube Talk blog: “Oh Yay!” 

Note: Most of this entry was written in jest.

Marketwatch reports the US Department of Justice — Antitrust Division has denied Sinclair Broadcast Group’s purchase of WTVR-TV in Richmond, VA. 

A consent decree between Justice and Raycom Media is the cause of the the denial. The consent decree was a condition for Raycom to acquire three stations from Lincoln Financial. It states that Justice could “reject unilaterally” any buyer of WTVR, without cause.

In June, Sinclair agreed to purchase WTVR from Raycom for $85 million and sell the license of WRLH to Carma Broadcasting (a company affiliated with Sinclair). Sinclair would then provide sales and non-programming services to WRLH-TV.

More after the bump:

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