Q: WXII is saying on-air they are No. 1 in the Triad for news. Is that true? I thought they were second or third.
J.S.C.
A: Each of the three major news stations in the Triad — WXII, WGHP and WFMY — has time periods where they lead. But in terms of the number of households tuning in to local news in the Triad, WXII came out on top more often than not during the November 2011 ratings period, according to numbers from the Nielsen Company.
These numbers are for the Triad Designated Market Area, or DMA, which covers 15 counties in northwest North Carolina plus Patrick County, Va. There are 691,200 households in the Triad DMA.
These numbers are not broken down by demographics, which tell what specific group is watching a given program, such as "men 18 to 49." Demographics are important to TV stations and are what is generally used to sell time to advertisers because they help tell the advertisers whether their target audience is watching.
Here are the basic household numbers in time periods when the three stations went head-to-head in weekday newscasts:
- At 5 a.m., WXII had 24,300 households; WGHP, 19,600; and WFMY, 18,600. Then at 6 a.m., before switching over to national daily morning programs, WXII had 43,200 households; WGHP, 36,400; and WFMY, 26,600.
- At noon, WFMY was on top with 37,900 households, followed by WXII with 36,000, and WGHP with 22,000.
- At 5 p.m., WXII had 52,400 households, followed by WGHP with 46,100 and WFMY with 34,900. Then at 6 p.m., WXII had 68,800 households, followed by WGHP with 54,500 and WFMY with 48,500.
The post-primetime newscasts are harder to compare because WGHP, as a Fox affiliate, starts its nightly newscast one hour earlier than the other two stations because Fox ends national programming at 10 rather than 11 p.m. At 10 p.m., while the other stations still carry national primetime programs, WGHP had 53,600 households tuning in to its nightly newscasts.
Then at 11 p.m., WXII had 52,900 households and WFMY had 51,100. So WGHP drew more viewers to its late newscast, but at an earlier timeslot.
One time period where WXII dominated last time around was the 4:30 a.m. early morning news, but it was not up against local news on the other stations at that time. In the November 2011 ratings, WXII had 15,600 households watching its 4:30 a.m. weekday newscast, compared with 6,500 for WGHP — which, at the time, had syndicated programs — and 9,900 for WFMY, which at that time had CBS national news in that timeslot.
The 4:30 a.m. timeslot has been a big growth area for WXII: the 15,600 number in November 2011 was significantly up from November 2010, when it had 9,700 households tuning in. The February ratings "sweeps" began Feb. 2, and those early morning numbers may change now that both WGHP and WFMY have started 4:30 a.m. newscasts as well. Both stations started those newscasts last month.
Another variable in the ratings this time around will be the fact that WXLV has begun carrying newscasts several times a day in collaboration with Time Warner Cable's News 14 Carolina.
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