Top-rated local news

[bpatrick]

> > Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville, NC-
> > Locally owned CBS affiliate WRAL-TV 5 is the market
> leader,
> > with a strong challenge from ABC O&O WTVD 11.  NBC O&O
> WNCN
> > 17 is a distant third, having only been the NBC affiliate
> > for ten years.  WRAL owns FOX affiliate WRAZ-TV 50 and
> > produces its ten o'clock news, which is branded as "WRAL's
>
> > 10 O'Clock News on FOX 50", which beats the 10pm show on
> WB
> > affiliate WLFL-TV 22 (part of Sinclair's "News Central"
> > brand).
>
> Roanoke, VA:
> WDBJ holds the ratings, no contest.  WSLS and WSET fight
> over 2nd place, and rightly so if you ask me.
>
> Charlottesville, VA:
> WVIR dominates over newly-launched WCAV and WVAW.
>
> I'm not sure which numbers those are, but I recall seeing
> them somewhere.
>
> - Trip
>
Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point, NC:

WFMY/2 (CBS), the market leader since it signed on
in 1949, finds itself running second to WXII/12 (NBC)
at 11 PM.  2, 12, and WGHP/Fox8 are in a virtual three-
way tie at 5 and 6; Andy Griffith on WFMY still dominates
at 5:30.  Frankly, 12's newscasts are the most professional-
looking.  ABC affiliate WXLV/45 is out of the local-news business;
I think it still runs Family Feud at 6, I know it runs
South Park at 11.

Columbia, SC:

WIS/10 (NBC) has been the market leader since George Washington
was in diapers, but WLTX/19 (CBS) has come on in both ratings
and quality since Gannett bought it.  WOLO/25 (ABC) is the
market joke; its newscasts are produced at sister station
WCCB/Fox18 in Charlotte.

[Scott Fybush]

> Is there a listing out there of the stations with the top
> local supperhour newscast for each market?  If not then list
> them here.
>
> These are the ones I know of:
>
> Detroit - WXYZ (ABC) **WXYZ apparently surpassed WDIV
> earlier this year
> Buffalo - WIVB (CBS)

WIVB has been trading the crown back and forth with WGRZ, once the dog of the market. Former ratings king WKBW now sits in the cellar after the departure of its veteran anchors and massive budget slashing.

Here in Rochester, WHEC (CBS) and WHAM-TV (ABC) trade ratings leadership back and forth.

In Syracuse, WSYR-TV (ABC) dominates over WTVH (CBS) and WSTM (NBC) in most books.

In Utica, WKTV (NBC) has the only local news, and ditto for WWNY (CBS) in Watertown. In Elmira, WETM (NBC) is comfortably dominant over WENY-TV (ABC), and in Binghamton, WBNG (CBS) is still on top over WIVT (ABC), though without the huge dominance it once held.

______________
Tower Site Calendar 2006 JUST RELEASED! - www.fybush.com

[easttxtv]

> Is there a listing out there of the stations with the top
> local supperhour newscast for each market?  If not then list
> them here.
>
For many years in DFW, WFAA/8 (ABC) was in front in most newsblocks (some sweeps periods were supposedly to the point of network-sized numbers); in the last 10 years, the landscape has changed quite a bit, with network affil swaps, nets buying up almost all the locals, and a shocking WFAA brain-drain/meltdown of late, have brought new sweeps winners in the last few sweeps:  KXAS/5 (NBC) has won 10pm in the last 2-3 (?) years (it's had good lead-ins for the most part and has become an O&O in the last several years), KDFW/4 (Fox) has been winning morning show matchups (I know, that was OT), and KTVT/11 (CBS) has undoubtedly been the biggest gainer in staff (having been the primary beneficiary of WFAA's anchor/reporter losses) and ratings (having gone from dead last (before changing from indie to CBS), improving thru the time of becoming a CBS O&O, to potentially tying or winning this month's sweeps at 10pm).

[easttxtv]

> Is there a listing out there of the stations with the top
> local supperhour newscast for each market?  If not then list
> them here.
>
In the Tyler/Longview/east TX market, KLTV/7 (ABC) always seems to be the one to beat for pretty much any newscast.  KETK/56 (NBC) had some good news numbers earlier in it's history but wasn't able to quite crack the creatures-of-habit advantage that KLTV has enjoyed.  When the Fox affiliate has had news in the past (2 times as KLMG/51 when they were a CBS station; once more recently in their current Fox (KFXK/51) setup/LMA with KETK), they would probably rank as the local also-ran, especially since most of their news focus was squarely on their home county (Gregg Co.) in Longview--not too helpful to the OTHERS who might have watched.  More recently, KYTX/19 (CBS) has come along with Tyler-based ops after having been a KETK second-banana in a previous life down in Nacogdoches; even with a good strong signal, and early-to-rise HD availability, it's probably too soon to tell if they will just be a nice alternative or will actually challenge KLTV in the ratings.

[bpatrick]

> > > New York seems to go between WNBC and WABC. WNYW and
> WCBS
> > > seem to be also rans.
> > >
> > Atlanta: WSB (ABC)--no contest.
> >
>
> bpatrick:
>
> When I had Dishnetwork for a while..At times I had the
> Atlanta Distant Networks..I was very impressed with WSB-2
> and their news presentation.  Easy to see why they've been
> so Dominant  WAGA Fox 5 wasnt bad-I am  used to similar news
> style on Fox 8 Cleveland..No  Opinion on WXIA-11 but it
> seemed that CBS 46 was definitely last place-and were very
> desperate to gain attention..
>
We had Primestar before DirecTV bought it, and WSB came
in the out-of-market network stations package.  Even though
I live in North Carolina, I watched WSB's news because it was
(and is) superior to any of our local newscasts (WRAL might
be an exception but I'm not especially crazy about the
people there).  My mom was a big fan of Glenn Burns (weather);
my dad liked everybody except Chuck Dowdle (sports); and I've
met John Pruitt and consider him a nice guy and a class act.

I have had few opportunities to watch WXIA since it went to
NBC (for which I am grateful, since I can never think of it
as any but an ABC affiliate even after 25 years), but people
in Atlanta have told me the Wes Sarginson-Brenda Wood anchor
team is getting better all the time.  It's not reflected in
the ratings; 11 is still its perennially third-place self.

If you wanted to see how low a station will go to call attention
to itself, you should have seen 11 back in 1976, when they first
started calling themselves 11 Alive.  They had a weathergirl
(no other way to describe her) that my friends thought was the
ultimate bimbo; Steve Somers (now of WFAN radio in New York)
constantly blasted the Atlanta pro teams (and they were losers
in those days); and somebody named Russ Nichols, the "11 Alive
Newshawk" (complete with a hawk that flew away at the end of
his segments), delivered mostly-insubstantial investigative
reports.  Yet the thing got decent ratings for a year or so
(although 11 stayed in third place) before viewers tired of it,
and 11 went to a more conventional approach that has been up
and down in the ratings ever since.

[Buddy Hayes]

>
> Houston - KTRK (ABC), though it has been challenged more and
> more recently by KHOU (CBS).  KPRC is an also-ran.
>

I could be wrong, but I think KHOU actually leads at 5 and 6, with KTRK winning at 10 (and 4, when KHOU is running Oprah).