Old News-Sentinel news (again) and TV Ratings

This piece appeared in The News-Sentinel, April 21st, four weeks after the ABC revamped show first aired, and on the very day that ABC cancelled it:



Again, this is one of the reasons that readers eschew the afternoon paper; it’s not relevant or timely.

But Editor Kerry Hubartt doesn’t get it, nor does Kevin Kilbane, who gathers such items for publication.
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WANE-TV/NewsChannel 15 received high ratings from Nielsen, but are those Nielsen ratings accurate?

Indiana’s NewsCenter, WFFT-55, and other stations around the country have abandoned Nielsen as their gauge of who is watching and when, because Nielsen’s methodology is inherently flawed, as even some Nielsen staffers and friends often note in MediaWeek, a Nielsen publication.

(Nielsen relies on entries written in diaries, by persons who may or may not remember exactly what they viewed a day or many days before they fill out their Nielsen book.)

INC, for example, caters to a hipper viewing audience than WANE does.

INC’s viewers are not inclined to fill out Nielsen diaries because they are actively engaged in busy life-styles, and are often not included in Nielsen’s demographic because they can’t be pinned down, residentially – living in dorms, or other places (with parents, friends) that excludes them from Nielsen’s diary disbursements.

WANE’s viewers are an older, more stable contingent of the Fort Wayne population – a battery of viewers whose sedentary life-style is amenable to measured viewing habits.

WANE’s news team(s) are also a bit more muffled, and staid than INC’s so one can understand how Fort Wayne’s “conservative” core might be attracted to NewsChannel 15 over INC’s racier and more dynamic news team(s).

Fox 55’s current owner has never used Nielsen (mostly for budget reasons), and stations elsewhere ignore Nielsen’s service for various reasons, usually because they feel Nielsen doesn’t accurately reflect their viewing audience, which has been our experience over the years. (Viewing samples we’ve gathered for NBC33, for instance, have always been higher than the Nielsen numbers indicated.)

So whole WANE can claim victory in the so-called March sweeps, they do so without viable competition.

But one has to give WANE kudos for maintaining their apparent dominance in the Fort Wayne television market, even if their victory is a bit hollow, all things considered.