Posted by Bud on February 19, 2010 at 13:12:34:
WMAQ's ratings soar with Winter Olympics coverage
It's all eyes on Olympics Games, with no other network even close to competing
If only Jay Leno had given WMAQ-Channel 5 the ratings boost that the Vancouver Winter Olympics has.
Over the first five nights of NBC Olympics coverage, WMAQ easily bested the Nieslen overnight ratings results for all four of its major competitors in the Chicago market in prime time. For the telecast of the opening ceremonies last Friday, WMAQ's 20.1 rating left all others local stations in the dust, with none scoring better than a 2.2 rating. A ratings point equals about 35,000 households here.
On Tuesday night, Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32 came closer than any other local station has in the last five days to being competitive with WMAQ in prime time -- thanks in large measure to Fox's popular two-hour "American Idol."
WMAQ was particularly dominant throughout the first weekend of Olympic competition, when its prime-time Olympics ratings never dropped below a 15, while almost all other stations struggled to maintain ratings in the 2's and 3's.
WMAQ's ratings dominance in the first days of the Winter Olympics is testament to the power of special-event programming. Dick Ebersol, NBC's top sports honcho, and his team are pros at mixing informative feature segments with relentless coverage of the competition, even as the sometimes odd couplings of on-air talent keep us hanging on nearly their every word. Take, for instance, the pairing of articulate lead Olympics anchor Bob Costas, who seems a bit too snarky this time around in Vancouver, with the folksy, aw-shucks ex-football player Cris Collinsworth.
Across the nation, the Nielsen ratings for NBC's coverage of the Vancouver Games averaged a 14.5 rating for the first five days of telecasts, nearly 14 percent higher than the 12.7 average rating for the first five days of NBC's coverage of the Turin Winter Games in 2006.
For all the pizzazz and the ratings lift the Winter Olympics are bringing to NBC in the wake of the Leno debacle, the network still expects to lose about $200 million on the Vancouver extravaganza because of the high price it paid for the broadcast rights years ago and the drop-off in ad revenue brought on by the more recent deep recession.
And NBC and its stations across the country are taking every opportunity they get to remind advertisers that did buy time on the Vancouver Olympics that they have gotten great exposure to large audiences for their monetary outlay. "We are overdelivering for our clients by significant amounts, and the Games and their stories are just getting going," said Larry Wert, president of NBC's central and western regions.
OVERNIGHT PRIME-TIME NIELSEN RATINGS IN CHICAGO MARKET
For first five days of Olympics, being aired on WMAQ-Channel 5
WMAQ-Ch. 5 WBBM-Ch. 2 WLS-Ch. 7 WGN-Ch. 9 WFLD-Ch. 32
Fri. 20.1 2.2 2.2 2.1 2.2
Sat. 15.2 1.8 1.5 2.7 2.6
Sun. 15.8 7.3 3.7 2.2 4.3
Mon. 16.4 4.2 7.3 1.8 4.6
Tue. 14 6.1 4 3.3 12.5