Not long after the print edition of this column was published last week did messages come in from two general managers of stations that finished behind WOWT (Cox Channel 8) in the 10 p.m. Omaha TV news ratings for May.
"Your statement, 'KMTV's new Action News format, which launched in February, has been slow to catch on with morning and evening viewers,' couldn't be farther from the truth," wrote KMTV (Cox Channel 5) General Manager Steve Wexler. "In fact, the station has now posted its best back-to-back ratings at 10 p.m. in over 10 years."
From KETV (Cox Channel 9) General Manager Joel Vilmenay: "KETV grew by more than two full rating points and experienced a 20 percent increase as compared to May 2005. In fact, KETV experienced the largest measure of growth at 10 p.m. In light of this fact, I hope that you are interested in setting the record straight."
Certainly, this column strives to be accurate and fair. But interpretation of Nielsen Media Research ratings is not so black-and-white. In addition to the household ratings (sheer numbers of viewers), there are also numerous demographic categories, broken out by age group and gender. For the past five years, this column has used household ratings as the standard for measuring a station's performance.
That, according to Vilmenay, is a mistake.
"As a former broadcast journalist, I'm sure you know that television broadcasters are not measured on "Household" ratings performance," he said in a phone interview. "In fact, the overwhelming majority of advertisers, if not all, measure the performance of all broadcast stations on some demographic age cell. That includes local, regional and national clients. If our household ratings go down, it doesn't matter. All we care about is our share of adults 25-54. If we grow that, we'll grow."
Wexler, too, weighed in with proof that KMTV covets the adult 25-54 demographic more than it does its household numbers.
"In February 2005, No. 3 KMTV trailed No. 1 WOWT by 5.6 (ratings points)," he wrote. "In February 2006, KMTV trailed WOWT by 4.6 - a gain of a whole ratings point. In May 2005, KMTV trailed WOWT by 9.6 ratings points. (But) in May 2006, we trailed WOWT by only 5.4 ratings points - a gain of 4.2 points.
"Clearly, the race at 10 p.m. is closer than it's been in a long, long time," Wexler said.
Both general managers make valid arguments for analyzing demographic, rather than household, ratings. (WOWT General Manager Frank Jonas could not be reached for comment.) The Reader's Media Notes will strongly consider including demographic information in future stories about Omaha TV news ratings.
6 comments:
Wow, More spin there than in the Ricketts/Nelson race.In reality KETV has made progress,but apparently its no big deal for Vilmenay that his station has thousands less viewers than WOWT. Sean, before you buy his line of reasoning it might be good to see if advertisers agree. KMTV's GM is grasping at straws.They are a distant third. We'll see how impressed he is with the numbers when the contracts of the current anchor team are up for renewal.
KMTV had an incredible amount of 'free' airtime on the Journal radio stations as well, including Todd & Tyler, for the entire sweep. That coupled with the ton of money on the new set/graphics should have moved the needle more.
The fact that KMTV made the change they did is quite impressive. Viewers in Omaha are incredible creatures of habit and take a long time to change their routines. KMTV didn't fall to third overnight, and it is wrong to believe that they will climb overnight. In 5 years, the numbers will be very interesting. But we do know one thing....KPTM will still be a DISTANT fourth.
KPTM a distant fourth ? Maybe. But the numbers show them to be much much closer to KMTV right now than KM is to 6 and 7.
I'd like to see those numbers to back up your statement, jiminy. I have yet to see pure numbers, unencumbered by analysis.
Im basing it on total viewers..not a demo. Look at Sean's first article on the ratings. 42 is closer to KM than KM is to 7 and 3.
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