Posted by Bud on September 04, 2009 at 10:09:48:
From today's Chicago Sun-Times, here is Lewis Lazare's column:
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In reporting the August Nielsen numbers for the 10 p.m. local TV newscasts last week, we overlooked a bit of context that WMAQ honcho Larry Wert thinks is important in understanding his station's August slide in that time slot compared to August of last year. That bit of context is the Beijing Summer Olympics, which aired on NBC. The games were a huge ratings success and a reason why -- for two weeks -- WMAQ's late news got a big ratings boost. That's one possible reason why the station's 10 p.m. news plummeted to a 5 last month from a 6.6 rating in August 2008.
No doubt Wert wanted to hold onto a lot of those viewers who sampled his late news during the Olympics, but that apparently didn't happen. Now he is counting on his new 10 p.m. anchor pairing -- Rob Stafford and Allison Rosati -- to do what the Olympics couldn't: bring in more loyal viewers.