NewsChannel 15 is on the WANE

The February TV rating period -- the so-called sweeps – ended up being very interesting, according to InterAmerica's survey:

INC’s WPTA morning news (5 and 6 a.m.) beat WANE’s morning newscasts.

WANE took Noon but WPTA/21 was close and WPTA won the 12:30 p.m. slot. (WANE doesn’t have a newscast at 12:30 p.m.)

WPTA captured the 5 p.m. hour (which includes the 5:30 p.m. period, which WANE abandons for the gossip show, Inside Edition)

WANE takes 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. but WPTA/21 is so close that the WANE win is niggardly.

Fox 55 news takes the 10 p.m. newcast beating INC’s CW newscast. (WANE doesn’t have a 10 p.m. newscast.)

WANE wins the weekend news periods but not by any numbers that mean anything

It seems that WANE doesn’t have coverage you can count on.

N.B. These "ratings" come from InterAmerica, Inc. (We don't use or rely on the Nielsen numbers.)

Spotlight on INC staffer

Brianne, a multimedia specialist at Indiana's NewsCenter received a special proposal from her long-time boyfriend Monday during the broadcast of ABC's popular (with women) Bachelor show.



Best wishes to Brianne, whom we understand is a wonderful, nice person, liked by all (and a real go-getter when it comes to advertising sales).

INC’s 5 p.m. news hour disappoints.

Duplicating the first half-hour in the second half-hour (and again at 6 p.m.) is redundancy of a banal kind. If INC is going to make a mark in TV news, it has to eschew viewer choices for the news punch-line – those last items that news media tries to lighten a newscast or newspaper report with – and, more importantly, do some actual journalism.



INC picked a few things Monday [2/8] that viewers could select for the newscast wrap-up: sword–swallowing, a Facebook instigated snowball fight (not in Fort Wayne), and one other inane item. Viewers picked, by voting online, the snowball fight.



As for journalistic effort, the new news-hours was replete with the same-old, same-old stuff: half-hearted news briefs about things that aren’t pertinent to viewers or the community as a whole.

If a station is going to do an hour (plus) of news, it better be news, and not fluff. Fort Wayne needs journalistic scrutiny -- which JG is doing half-heartedly, and WANE skirts with its headline approach to news, and INC doesn’t do at all, preferring insipid asides by lazy reporters (Jeff Neumeyer, for one). The News-Sentinel is out of the running as we expect that paper to fold, sadly, before the third quarter of 2010.

Nope, INC’s foray into extended news programming was lame and a duplicate of its pathetic morning news hours. No hoopla here for the effort. Nor none from viewers either.

Tipsy?

Former JG reporter and present FWCS spokesperson Krista Stockman writes, with her husband, JG reporter Dan Stockman, a weekly column about wine for the morning paper.

We have always thought the Stockman’s were a little too intense about wine.

And watching Ms. Stockman provide updates about the Fort Wayne school system, we get the distinct impression that maybe she’s indulging her wine predilection a bit much lately.

We also notice that Mr. Stockman’s JG items have become flaccid of late also.

Are the Stockman’s replicating the characters (and situation) in the movie “Days of Wine and Roses”?

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.

Enough, INC...enough already!

Again, Indiana's NewsCenter abrogates its broadcast responsibilities and screws up Sunday's [3/15/09] ABC network news, by over-running WPTA's local newscast, cutting into the network's news program, causing viewers to miss the important headliner item about AIG and that company's errant bonuses using taxpayer monies:



This kind of thing happens all the time, and in this instance, 21Alive had to show a story about mullets at a fire station, then insert contractual advertising; but note the promo for INC's VIPIR radar...unnecessary, and forcing more lost minutes for ABC News.

Then later in the evening, INC inserted, by mistake, ads for U.S. Cellular, et cetera, at a crucial scene during ABC's "Brothers and Sisters."







This screw-up took place at 10:38 p.m., causing viewers to miss a pertinent storyline segment.

The same ads re-ran at 10:45.

INC continues to be remiss and lax when it comes to broadcasting, and we have come to the point where we are starting to hate INC as much as most viewers in town.

What’s wrong with INC – still?

WPTA President and General Manager Jerry Giesler has been touting the Indiana’s NewsCenter switch to all-digital broadcasting, and extolling WISE/NBC33’s full power digital broadcasting now that it doesn’t have to provide analog programming.

We have state-of-the-art televisions – full 1080p high definition – with amplified antennae (on roof), rotated by computers to all Fort Wayne stations.

And we’re still getting digital break-up on 33, along with occasional glitches on 21.1 (21.2 et cetera).

Yes, we have cable (Comcast) and satellite (Dish), and they’re not immune to digital break-ups either, but not as egregious as those from over-the-air broadcasting by INC.

With INC digital we get frustrating picture quality, and engineering botches that seem amateurish, even after a few years of preparation by INC's people.

So what’s the big deal Mr. Giesler?
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Mary Collins, in a news break Wednesday morning [2/18], gave the phone number for INC’s digital phone-bank for DTV help as 979-2721 when the number was 969-2721.
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Dean Pantazi’s sport segment on WPTA Wednesday night [2/18] gave a basketball score between Leo and Carroll high schools – the contest was between Leo and Bishop Dwenger.