KSL barely beats KUTV

Things changed — rather dramatically — in the local late-news ratings during the just-completed November sweeps. At the same time, things stayed the same as they've been for decades.

As it has for longer than just about anyone can remember, KSL-Ch. 5 was No. 1 in the late-night news ratings. Which is a big deal, because that single telecast generates up to half of a local station's revenues.

The headline isn't so much that KSL won, it's by how much. Or by how little.

In the seven-day (Monday-Sunday) ratings, KSL averaged an 11.1 rating and a 21 share. Second-place KUTV-Ch. 2 averaged a 10.8 rating and a 20 share — the closest any station has come to KSL during a sweeps in years.

A rating point represent 1 percent of the homes in a television market; a share point is 1 percent of the homes where the TV is being watched at any one time. When those ratings are translated into households (as a percentage of the 919,390 homes in the Salt Lake TV market), KSL's lead over KUTV at 10 p.m. is down to about 3,000 homes.

Ch. 5 averaged approximately 102,000 homes; Ch. 2 averaged about 99,000 — a difference of about 3 percent.

Compared to November 2007, Ch. 5 dropped .9 of a rating point and about 3,000 homes. KUTV went up .5 of a rating point and about 8,000 homes.

(The math looks odd because, according to Nielsen Media Research, the number of homes in the Salt Lake TV market increased by 44,740 from November 2007 to November 2008. And, remember, ratings and shares are percentages.)

KSL blamed its network, NBC, for its ratings woes. And there is absolutely an argument to be made along those lines because NBC gave its local affiliate a lousy lead-in. In the Salt Lake TV market, NBC's prime-time schedule averaged a 5.9 rating to CBS's 8.5.

But lead-in doesn't account for everything. KSL's 10 p.m. newscast led third-place KSTU-Ch. 13's 9 p.m. news hour (7.1/13) by 4 full ratings points, but NBC's prime-time (7-10 p.m.) led Fox's prime-time (7-9 p.m.) by only 1.4.

And KSL led fourth-place KTVX-Ch. 4 by a whopping 6.4 rating points, while NBC led ABC by only .7.

(Some wags suggest that maybe the narrowing gap between Ch. 5 and Ch. 2 has something to do with mortality rates. Back when KSL had a huge lead in the late-news ratings, a big part of that lead was built on older viewers ... many of whom are no longer with us.)

Ch. 13's late newscast improved by .5 of a rating point and about 7,000 homes.

And as for Ch. 4, well, the bad news just isn't getting any better. The station actually lost ground at 10 p.m., dropping half a rating point and losing about 4,000 homes.

The only thing keeping Ch. 4 from the bottom of the barrel is the 9 p.m. newscast that KUTV-Ch. 2 airs on KJZZ-Ch. 14, which pulls in a measly 1.4 rating and about 13,000 homes.

But if you add those 13,000 homes to Ch. 2's 10 p.m., total, that means that about 10,000 more homes were watching a KUTV-produced late-night newscast during the November sweeps than were watching a KSL-produced newscast.

Viewers in some homes no doubt watch both Ch. 14 at 9 p.m. and Ch. 2 at 10 p.m., but it's sort of interesting nonetheless.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com