Competition can't 'Beat' KSL's local sports show

YOU CAN'T BEAT "SportsBeat" no matter how much "Talkin' Sports" you do — at least not in the local sports-show competition on the weekends.

During the recently completed November sweeps, KSL-Ch. 5's "SportsBeat Saturday" and "SportsBeat Sunday" were highest-rated and second highest-rated, respectively, of the 12 local sports shows on five channels.

Which is not to say that KUTV-Ch. 2's two editions of "Talkin' Sports" did poorly. The Saturday (No. 3) and Sunday (No. 4) editions of that show were very strong.

Here's a top-to-bottom ranking of the November ratings for the various shows. (Each rating point represents 1 percent of the 874,650 households Nielsen Media Research tells us there are in the Salt Lake TV market. A share point represents 1 percent of the homes where someone is watching TV at a particular time.)

1. "SportsBeat Saturday" (10:30 p.m., Ch. 5) — 7.0 rating/16 share, approx. 61,200 homes

2. "SportsBeat Sunday" (10:30 p.m., Ch. 5) — 6.0/14, approx. 52,500

3. "Talkin' Sports" (Saturday, 10:30 p.m., Ch. 2) — 5.2/12, approx. 45,500

4. "Talkin' Sports" (Sunday, 10:30 p.m., Ch. 2) — 4.6/12, approx. 40,200

5. "The Beat Goes On" (Sunday, 11 p.m., Ch. 5) — 3.6/11, approx. 31,500

6. "The Beat Goes On" (Saturday, 11 p.m., Ch. 5) — 3.3/9, approx. 28,900

7. "Sports Page on Fox" (Sunday, 10 p.m., Ch. 13) — 3.2/6, approx. 28,000

8. "Roughing It Outdoors" (Saturday, 11 p.m., Ch. 2) — 2.9/8, approx. 25,400

9. "Sports Zone" (Saturday, 10:30 p.m., Ch. 4) — 1.9/4, approx. 16,600

10. "KJZZ Talkin' Sports" (Saturday, 9:30 p.m., Ch. 14) — 1.8/4, approx. 15,700

11. "The Red Zone" (Sunday, 10:30 p.m., Ch. 4) — 1.7/4, approx. 14,900

12. "KJZZ Talkin' Sports" (Sunday, 9:30 p.m., Ch. 14) — 1.4/3, approx. 12,200

I got ripped by Utah fans last week for mentioning in this column the controversial personal foul call and non-call in the BYU-Utah football game — even though I quite intentionally offered no opinion about whether the calls were good or bad.

(I'm not a ref, I'm a TV critic.)