Posted by Lew Lazare on November 06, 2010 at 12:42:24:
November 4, 2010
LEWIS LAZARE llazare@ suntimes.com
All the high-stakes drama of Election Day in Illinois didn't translate into huge news ratings landslides for any of the local TV stations -- all of which deployed large forces to cover the results Tuesday night. The Nielsen overnight ratings in most cases reflected what each outlet has been notching in recent weeks for a typical late newscast.
But what wasn't typical about Tuesday was the decision by all the major local stations -- excepting ABC-owned WLS Channel 7 -- to "retitle" their respective late newscasts. "Retitling" is television jargon for opting in advance to exclude a newscast's ratings in the numbers used to calculate the average monthly rating. A spokeswoman for NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5 wouldn't go into specifics about why the station decided to retitle its 10 p.m. newscast Tuesday, except to say "Election Day is a Nielsen-designated holiday day, and therefore has retitling options which we elected to take." The spokeswoman also indicated elections are generally considered "atypical viewing," so the station chose to retitle its 10 p.m. newscast.
» Click to enlarge image Gov. Pat Quinn told the crowd early Wednesday that he believed he won the gubernatorial race. Beside him is Lt. Gov. nominee Shelia Simon. Despite all the drama of Election Day, it didn't translate into huge news ratings landslides for any of the local TV stations.
(AP)
NIELSEN ELECTION NIGHT RATINGS
for late local TV newscasts
WLS-Ch. 7 9.7 (339,500 households)
WGN-Ch. 9 5.6 (196,000)
WMAQ-Ch. 5 5.3 (185,500)
WBBM-Ch. 2 3.4 (119,000)
WFLD-Ch. 32 2.2 (77,000)
Based on past performance, however, Channel 7 obviously was confident its ratings for the night would not wind up atypical. And that was indeed the case. The station pulled a 9.7 for its 10 p.m. news half-hour, a hair higher than the 9.6 rating its top-rated late news averaged for the month of October. Tribune Co.-owned WGN-Channel 9 came in second Tuesday night, pulling a 5.6 rating during its 9 p.m. news hour, beating out Channel 5's 5.3 rating at 10 p.m.
With a 3.4 rating Tuesday night at 10 p.m., CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2 was the only station to notably underperform its October late news average rating of 5.5. And has been the case with its 9 p.m. news package in recent months, Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32's election night newscast wound up at the bottom of the pack, with a 2.2 rating, only slightly better than its 1.9 average for October.