Local Nielsen rating snapshot (Mon., Jan. 5)
01/06/09 11:25 AM
By ED BARK
Texas' dramatic Fiesta Bowl comeback win over Ohio State rolled to a dominating prime-time win Monday.
The Fox telecast averaged 790,517 D-FW viewers, easily the biggest crowd for college football's conveyor belt of bowl games. But Thursday night's climactic Oklahoma-Florida national championship game clearly has a great shot at topping that number and perhaps even hitting the one million mark.
Throughout the night, Texas-Ohio State outdrew the combined programming on ABC, CBS, NBC and The CW. Among the also-rans, a two-hour edition of NBC's new Superstars of Dance had 225,862 viewers from 7 to 9 p.m. opposite ABC's two-hour premiere of The Bachelor 13 (186,004 viewers). But The Bachelor beat Superstars among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds.
At 9 p.m., ABC's first episode of True Beauty scraped up 199,920 viewers to run third behind football and a repeat of CBS' CSI: Miami (265,720 viewers). True Beauty outdrew CSI: Miami in the 18-to-49 demo, though.
NBC's new Momma's Boys lagged with just 99,645 total viewers at that hour pulling in fifth behind CW 33's 9 p.m. local newscast (112,931 viewers). The Peacock also ran fifth with 18-to-49-year-olds.
In the daily local news derby, WFAA8 topped a downsized three-horse field at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the preferred advertiser target audience for news programming.
Fox4 again scored twin wins at 6 a.m. while also as usual whipping the three network morning shows from 7 to 9 a.m.
WFAA8 had the golds at 5 p.m and also won in total viewers at 6 p.m. WFAA8 and NBC5 shared first place in the later hour among 25-to-54-year-olds.
Texas' dramatic Fiesta Bowl comeback win over Ohio State rolled to a dominating prime-time win Monday.
The Fox telecast averaged 790,517 D-FW viewers, easily the biggest crowd for college football's conveyor belt of bowl games. But Thursday night's climactic Oklahoma-Florida national championship game clearly has a great shot at topping that number and perhaps even hitting the one million mark.
Throughout the night, Texas-Ohio State outdrew the combined programming on ABC, CBS, NBC and The CW. Among the also-rans, a two-hour edition of NBC's new Superstars of Dance had 225,862 viewers from 7 to 9 p.m. opposite ABC's two-hour premiere of The Bachelor 13 (186,004 viewers). But The Bachelor beat Superstars among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds.
At 9 p.m., ABC's first episode of True Beauty scraped up 199,920 viewers to run third behind football and a repeat of CBS' CSI: Miami (265,720 viewers). True Beauty outdrew CSI: Miami in the 18-to-49 demo, though.
NBC's new Momma's Boys lagged with just 99,645 total viewers at that hour pulling in fifth behind CW 33's 9 p.m. local newscast (112,931 viewers). The Peacock also ran fifth with 18-to-49-year-olds.
In the daily local news derby, WFAA8 topped a downsized three-horse field at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the preferred advertiser target audience for news programming.
Fox4 again scored twin wins at 6 a.m. while also as usual whipping the three network morning shows from 7 to 9 a.m.
WFAA8 had the golds at 5 p.m and also won in total viewers at 6 p.m. WFAA8 and NBC5 shared first place in the later hour among 25-to-54-year-olds.
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Miller time at The 33 (updated with new quotes Tuesday p.m.)
01/05/09 11:05 PM
By ED BARK
Former NBC early morning meteorologist Rebecca Miller officially became The 33's new weeknight forecaster Monday night, with previous occupant Bob Goosmann still in the mix for now.
Meanwhile, sources say that sports anchor Bob Irzyk has been let go after 10 years at the station.
No one in management could be reached for comment, but news director David Duitch lately has not been returning repeated phone messages left at his office. The already thinly staffed Ch. 33 newsroom has been fear-struck of late, with veteran news anchor Terri Chappell abruptly dropped early last month.
Miller did the indoor weather segments on Monday's 9 p.m. newscast, with Goosmann out in the cold -- literally. He reported live from a location outside the studio, re-informing viewers that they'd just experienced a rainy, shivery day after temperatures had hit the 80s over the weekend. After "Rebecca's 5-Day Forecast," news anchor Tom Crespo welcomed her as "now a permanent member of The 33 staff."
As previously reported on unclebarky.com, Goosmann was offered an opportunity to stay on staff as a weekend weather anchor and three-days-a-week general assignment reporter. A 30 percent pay cut also would be part of the deal.
"Yes, I have decided to stay," Goosmann said Tuesday. "In this economy and the state that the media business is in, I thought it was the best thing for me and my family at this time."
Management informed him Monday that Miller would be replacing him on Ch. 33's weeknight newscasts, Goosmann said.
"I have the utmost respect for Rebecca and have already enjoyed working with her," he said. "Not only is she very good at what she does, but more importantly she's a nice person."
Goosmann said he's "very saddened" that sports anchor Irzyk has been dropped. "I'm sure he'll land on his feet. As you know, when there's a management change in this business, they often want to move in a different direction. That's clearly the case here."
Duitch, a former WFAA8 news director, took that position at CW33 in July of last year.
Miller said Tuesday that she took the full-time chief meteorologist job at CW33 after being assured that Goosmann would be staying on.
"I would not take any position if it meant someone else lost theirs," she said.
Goosmann "has been absolutely wonderful about the whole thing," Miller said. "Apparently he'd been talked to about doing weekends awhile ago, As far as I know he's going to continue to be part of the 9 p.m. weather and news as much as he chooses. I'm happy to share on-air responsibilities as a team anytime. Both of us will do weather-related, environmentally-related stories."
Goosmann also will work on improving The 33's website, Miller said. "He's great with computers."
Miller had been filling in on weekends at The 33, with former NBC5 weekend meteorologist Krista Villarreal also taking a few shifts during the holidays after recently returning to North Texas from WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh. Miller worked at NBC5 for 17 years before the station decided not to renew her contract last March. Her termination generated more than 400 comments to unclebarky.com.
***On a somewhat less eventful note, WFAA8 veteran Jeff Brady is temporarily filling in on the station's Daybreak program while the search is on for a permanent anchor to join incumbent Cynthia Izaguirre. He began his stint this week.
"I'm told it will not be the permanent fix, and I'll be back to 5 p.m. (anchoring) before too much longer," Brady said in a video blog Monday. He expects to be working the early morning shift at least through January.
WFAA8 management is looking outside the station for a permanent replacement. Brad Hawkins co-anchored Daybreak from August to late December, when he left WFAA8 to take a PR position at Dallas-based Southwest Airlines. Hawkins had been getting an extended tryout in the seat vacated by Justin Farmer, who went to Atlanta's WSB-TV.
Budget cuts knock the wind out of Sky 4, Chopper 5 and Chopper 11
01/05/09 01:10 PM
By ED BARK
Three of D-FW's four major TV news providers are lowering their overheads by opting for cheaper choppers.
Gone are the bigger Bell helicopters that long have assumed the identities of Sky 4, Chopper 5 and Chopper 11. The veteran pilot/reporters who flew them, Fox4's Scott Wallace, NBC5's Ken Arnold and CBS11's Hector Cavazos, also are out of the picture.
"We all had our final flights on New Year's Eve," Wallace said in a telephone interview.
The three stations instead are turning to Garland-based Sky Helicopters, Inc. and its smaller Robinson R44 whirlybirds. The company offers less costly weekly, monthly and long-term "turnkey aircraft/pilot packages" to clients. WFAA8 also uses Sky Helicopters on occasion, but otherwise still deploys its trademark HD Chopper 8 with pilot/reporter Troy Bush.
"TV stations aren't making the money they used to make, and one of the biggest budget items is a helicopter," Wallace says. "We're like the fire trucks at the stations. We hop in the helicopters and we go to wherever the news is happening."
Wallace, who was president of the National Broadcast Pilots Association from 2001-'08, piloted Sky 4 for 13 years before the station grounded him. Under the new arrangement with Sky Helicopter, stations "won't have the experienced pilot or reporter on board describing the action on the ground," Wallace says. "That's something they're going to lose. The anchors are going to have to figure out some context for the picture. All they're going to receive is the video feed."
It's debatable how much of value viewers will be missing. It wouldn't hurt a bit, for instance, if stations all but ended their live, blow-by-blow reports of ongoing car chases. We also could survive with fewer overhead shots of burning buildings, car wrecks or neighborhoods that may or may not have a fugitive on the loose or in hiding.
Helicopters obviously can show the bigger picture, too, particularly in times of natural disasters. And they're still the optimum way to go when a reporter and cameraman need to travel fast to a distant, breaking story.
However it all shakes out, this looks like the end of an era. Helicopters used to be major players in typically overblown promotional campaigns. They were considered part of the news team, let alone a "flying billboard for the station," as Wallace puts it. In 2005, CBS11 sold "limited edition" mini-replicas of Chopper 11 to benefit the North Texas and Tarrant Area food banks.
Now you can slap a "For Rent" sign on Sky 4, Chopper 5 and Chopper 11 while their trusty pilots all look to fly for someone else.
Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., Jan. 2-4)
01/05/09 12:01 PM
By ED BARK
A flurry of weekend activity, dominated by college and pro football, brought 2009 into full view on home screens.
Let's look first at Mississippi's high-scoring win over Texas Tech in the homegrown Cotton Bowl. It drew a symmetrical 365,365 D-FW viewers on Fox, which probably shouldn't let Pat Summerall do the play-by-play anymore. Sometimes you just have to know when your day is done. And the 78-year-old Summerall is way too slow on the draw these days. Analyst Brian Baldinger should be sent elsewhere, too. Bring in a new team for 2010's inaugural Cotton Bowl in Jerry's Arlington Palace. Just keep Tony Siragusa out of it.
In prime-time, Utah's upset win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl lured 358,722 viewers to Fox's telecast. Kenny Albert and Daryl Johnston made for a high caliber announcing team, with the former Cowboys fullback getting better each season. Has he surpassed Troy Aikman, Fox's A-team analyst for pro games? Johnston's at least his equal, but Aikman still has a hammerlock on the top spot in tandem with Joe Buck.
Saturday's pro playoffs on NBC both outdrew Friday's college bowls. Arizona's win over Atlanta averaged 504,868 viewers. San Diego's overtime victory over Indianapolis then ballooned to 770,588 viewers.
On Sunday, Baltimore beat Miami to the tune of 544,726 viewers on CBS. Philadelphia's win over Minnesota jumped to 717,444 viewers on Fox.
Sunday also brought the premiere of NBC's Superstars of Dance, which drew 292,292 viewers in the 8 to 10 p.m. slot. That put it a respectable second in the first hour opposite ABC's new episode of Desperate Housewives (312,221 viewers). Dancing then waltzed to first place at 9 p.m., outscoring ABC's new episode of Brothers & Sisters (279,006 viewers).
Dancing ran second for the entire two hours among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds, with ABC on top.
CBS barely bothered promoting a double dollop of its new Game Show In My Head, which ran fourth from 7 to 8 p.m. Saturday in both total viewers and 18-to-49-year-olds. GSIMH did manage to outdraw ABC's competing combo of a Peanuts reprise and the first half-hour of Sleepless in Seattle. But it fell short of CW's pair of Simpsons repeats among D-FW viewers.
In Friday's local news derby, WFAA8 won at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. It was a downsized three-station field, though, with Fox4 still carrying the Sugar Bowl.
The 6 a.m. golds again went to Fox4, which also continued its recent strong run at 5 p.m. with a pair of first place finishes. The 6 p.m. top spots were shared by WFAA8 in total viewers and NBC5 in the 25-to-54 demographic.
A flurry of weekend activity, dominated by college and pro football, brought 2009 into full view on home screens.
Let's look first at Mississippi's high-scoring win over Texas Tech in the homegrown Cotton Bowl. It drew a symmetrical 365,365 D-FW viewers on Fox, which probably shouldn't let Pat Summerall do the play-by-play anymore. Sometimes you just have to know when your day is done. And the 78-year-old Summerall is way too slow on the draw these days. Analyst Brian Baldinger should be sent elsewhere, too. Bring in a new team for 2010's inaugural Cotton Bowl in Jerry's Arlington Palace. Just keep Tony Siragusa out of it.
In prime-time, Utah's upset win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl lured 358,722 viewers to Fox's telecast. Kenny Albert and Daryl Johnston made for a high caliber announcing team, with the former Cowboys fullback getting better each season. Has he surpassed Troy Aikman, Fox's A-team analyst for pro games? Johnston's at least his equal, but Aikman still has a hammerlock on the top spot in tandem with Joe Buck.
Saturday's pro playoffs on NBC both outdrew Friday's college bowls. Arizona's win over Atlanta averaged 504,868 viewers. San Diego's overtime victory over Indianapolis then ballooned to 770,588 viewers.
On Sunday, Baltimore beat Miami to the tune of 544,726 viewers on CBS. Philadelphia's win over Minnesota jumped to 717,444 viewers on Fox.
Sunday also brought the premiere of NBC's Superstars of Dance, which drew 292,292 viewers in the 8 to 10 p.m. slot. That put it a respectable second in the first hour opposite ABC's new episode of Desperate Housewives (312,221 viewers). Dancing then waltzed to first place at 9 p.m., outscoring ABC's new episode of Brothers & Sisters (279,006 viewers).
Dancing ran second for the entire two hours among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds, with ABC on top.
CBS barely bothered promoting a double dollop of its new Game Show In My Head, which ran fourth from 7 to 8 p.m. Saturday in both total viewers and 18-to-49-year-olds. GSIMH did manage to outdraw ABC's competing combo of a Peanuts reprise and the first half-hour of Sleepless in Seattle. But it fell short of CW's pair of Simpsons repeats among D-FW viewers.
In Friday's local news derby, WFAA8 won at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. It was a downsized three-station field, though, with Fox4 still carrying the Sugar Bowl.
The 6 a.m. golds again went to Fox4, which also continued its recent strong run at 5 p.m. with a pair of first place finishes. The 6 p.m. top spots were shared by WFAA8 in total viewers and NBC5 in the 25-to-54 demographic.
Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed.-Thurs., Dec. 31/Jan. 1)
01/02/09 12:11 PM
By ED BARK
Here's a little turn-of-the-year ratings whoopee.
WFAA8's last telecast of 2008, its live, locally produced Big D NYE special from Victory Park, easily had more viewers than any other program Wednesday. It also drew almost as big a crowd as the following day's Rose Bowl game on ABC/WFAA8. That's a huge boost for localism.
Big D NYE, with sports anchor Dale Hansen and weathercaster Pete Delkus as the principal hosts, averaged 465,010 D-FW viewers, peaking at 544,726 between midnight and 12:15 a.m.
The Rose Bowl, in which Southern Cal mostly toyed with Penn State, drew 484,939 viewers with a peak audience of 577,941 between 5:15 and 5:30 p.m.
Big D NYE also clicked with advertiser-favored 18-to-49-year-olds, clocking in with 217,160 of 'em overall and a high of 275,502 at the midnight hour. The Rose Bowl averaged 236,608 viewers in the 18-to-49 age range, peaking at 281,984 from 5:15 to 5:30 p.m.
The other New Year's Day bowl game ratings pictures looked like this, with winning teams listed first:
Georgia and Michigan State in the Capitol One Bowl on ABC -- 259,077 total viewers and 100,477 in the 18-to-49 demographic.
Virginia Tech-Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl on Fox -- 245,791 total viewers and 106,960 in the 18-to-49 demo.
Nebraska and Clemson in the Gator Bowl on CBS -- 139,503 total viewers and 51,859 in the 18-to-49 demo.
Iowa and South Carolina in the Outback Bowl on ESPN -- 59,787 total viewers and 35,653 in the 18-to-49 demo.
Over on NBC, the NHL's outdoor "Winter Classic" between the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks averaged 39,858 viewers, with 19,447 in the 18-to-49 age range.
CBS took a ratings bath on New Year's Eve afternoon with Oregon State's 3-0 win over Pittsburgh in El Paso's Sun Bowl. The game drew just 39,858 D-FW viewers, only 6,482 of 'em in the 18-to-49 demo.
The local TV news providers wrote off their Wednesday and Thursday editions with "Holiday" designations, which means they're not officially counted by Nielsen Media Research. For the record, though, the last day of 2008 went like this:
WFAA won at 10 p.m. Wednesday in total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.
Fox4 ran the table at 6 a.m. and also placed first among 25-to-54-year-olds at 5 p.m.
WFAA8 won at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. in total viewers. At 6 p.m. it shared the top spot with with Fox4 in the 25-to-54 demo.
Here's a little turn-of-the-year ratings whoopee.
WFAA8's last telecast of 2008, its live, locally produced Big D NYE special from Victory Park, easily had more viewers than any other program Wednesday. It also drew almost as big a crowd as the following day's Rose Bowl game on ABC/WFAA8. That's a huge boost for localism.
Big D NYE, with sports anchor Dale Hansen and weathercaster Pete Delkus as the principal hosts, averaged 465,010 D-FW viewers, peaking at 544,726 between midnight and 12:15 a.m.
The Rose Bowl, in which Southern Cal mostly toyed with Penn State, drew 484,939 viewers with a peak audience of 577,941 between 5:15 and 5:30 p.m.
Big D NYE also clicked with advertiser-favored 18-to-49-year-olds, clocking in with 217,160 of 'em overall and a high of 275,502 at the midnight hour. The Rose Bowl averaged 236,608 viewers in the 18-to-49 age range, peaking at 281,984 from 5:15 to 5:30 p.m.
The other New Year's Day bowl game ratings pictures looked like this, with winning teams listed first:
Georgia and Michigan State in the Capitol One Bowl on ABC -- 259,077 total viewers and 100,477 in the 18-to-49 demographic.
Virginia Tech-Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl on Fox -- 245,791 total viewers and 106,960 in the 18-to-49 demo.
Nebraska and Clemson in the Gator Bowl on CBS -- 139,503 total viewers and 51,859 in the 18-to-49 demo.
Iowa and South Carolina in the Outback Bowl on ESPN -- 59,787 total viewers and 35,653 in the 18-to-49 demo.
Over on NBC, the NHL's outdoor "Winter Classic" between the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks averaged 39,858 viewers, with 19,447 in the 18-to-49 age range.
CBS took a ratings bath on New Year's Eve afternoon with Oregon State's 3-0 win over Pittsburgh in El Paso's Sun Bowl. The game drew just 39,858 D-FW viewers, only 6,482 of 'em in the 18-to-49 demo.
The local TV news providers wrote off their Wednesday and Thursday editions with "Holiday" designations, which means they're not officially counted by Nielsen Media Research. For the record, though, the last day of 2008 went like this:
WFAA won at 10 p.m. Wednesday in total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.
Fox4 ran the table at 6 a.m. and also placed first among 25-to-54-year-olds at 5 p.m.
WFAA8 won at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. in total viewers. At 6 p.m. it shared the top spot with with Fox4 in the 25-to-54 demo.