Posted by chicagomedia.org on September 25, 2009 at 12:01:43:
Channel 7 still one to beat
TV | In local news war battle, WBBM, WMAQ eye WLS throne
September 25, 2009
LEWIS LAZARE | Chicago Sun-Times
With a new flagship anchor team of Allison Rosati and Rob Stafford at NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5, and a largely revamped late newscast fronted by Rob Johnson at CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2, both stations are pushing harder than at any time in recent history to dethrone longtime late news ratings leader WLS.
Even so, with the fall television season officially under way, ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7's 10 p.m. news still looks unbeatable.
WLS drew an 8.3 rating Monday through Sunday at 10 p.m. in the September Nielsen ratings book that ended Thursday. With the help of some strong lead-in numbers from Jay Leno's first week of prime-time talk shows, WMAQ's 10 p.m. newscast remained solidly in second place with a 6.4 rating, up from a 6.2 a year ago.
But there are already signs the Leno show may not give WMAQ's late newscast the lead-in boost it was hoping for over the long haul. In the first three days of his second week in prime time, Leno was pulling only a 4.9 rating, down sharply from the 9.4 he scored in his debut week.
As for WBBM, its numbers are moving in the right direction. WBBM's 10 p.m. news notched a 3.8 rating in the September book Monday through Sunday, up nearly a full rating point from 2.9 a year ago.
While WBBM's numbers were going up, Tribune Co.-owned WGN-Channel 9 saw its flagship 9 p.m. news rating drop more than a full point to 4.1 from a 5.3 a year ago. At least one WGN insider believes the station's newscast took a big hit because of Leno's strong debut numbers in the same 9 p.m. time slot on WMAQ. And Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32's 9 p.m. rating also fell to a lowly 2.2 from a 2.9 a year ago.