KNBC Makes Inroads Into KABC Local News Hold

With audiences dramatically lower this May than in the wake of the Los Angeles riots a year ago, KNBC-TV Channel 4 challenged market-leader KABC-TV Channel 7 for local news supremacy during the just-completed ratings sweeps.

KABC--which had been dominating the news ratings for the past couple of years and proved to be the station that local viewers favored during last year’s civic crisis--suffered significant losses as Southern Californians watched far less TV than last year. The number of sets in use at 6 p.m., for example, was down more than 10% this year compared to last May.

Despite the slide, KABC still won the 4 p.m., 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. news battles in both the Nielsen and Arbitron audience measurements, with KNBC gaining ground and finishing second in all time periods.

At 11 p.m., however, KABC lost 33% of its audience in Nielsen and nearly 40% in Arbitron, while KNBC, thanks to a big boost provided by the final episode of “Cheers” on May 20, enjoyed about a 20% jump in audience share in both services over last year to assume the lead by a wide margin. Even excluding the night of the “Cheers” special, which served to quadruple KNBC’s average news number, KNBC still won at 11 p.m.

Channel 4, which also won the 6 a.m. early morning race, seemed to gain this month by losing the least in the afternoon. The station’s ratings in the afternoon news block were down only slightly compared to the big losses suffered by rivals KABC and KCBS-TV Channel 2, and KNBC’s share of the audience actually increased slightly.

KNBC’s performance last spring was considered so disappointing that it eventually prompted the station to hire Paul Moyer away from KABC as its primary anchor, to conduct a thorough internal review of its news department and to let go of news director Nancy Valenta.

Moyer’s ratings performance on the 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. news this month was far more competitive than any time since he arrived at KNBC last July. His success at 11 p.m. was buoyed by NBC’s prime-time triumph and by his co-anchor Kelly Lange, who joined him on the newscast last February.

Mark Hoffman, KNBC’s news director for the past three months, attributed the station’s improvement after a two-year decline to a “de-emphasis of lifestyle news” and increased attention to breaking or hard news.

“Los Angeles became a news town,” said Hoffman, who came to KNBC from Chicago last March. “One out of 10 people are unemployed. You’ve had some major natural disasters, and what we’ve tried to do is get back in the news business. And what you see is that KABC, which has just absolutely dominated recently, at least for this month is vulnerable.”

KABC news director Roger Bell could not be reached for a response.

KCBS, which had been challenging KNBC for second place in recent sweeps under the controversial leadership of recently fired news director John Lippman, foundered badly without him, especially in Nielsen, finishing third in all news time periods.

On the network level, meanwhile, NBC, which finished last among the Big Three networks for this past prime-time season, won its ninth consecutive May sweeps. CBS and ABC ended up in a virtual tie for second, while Fox finished fourth. Even with the massive “Cheers” audience last week, however, the three major networks saw their combined share of the prime-time audience during May average only 60%.

In the independent news battle locally, KTLA-TV Channel 5 again won at 10 p.m. in both ratings services. But KTTV-TV Channel 11 was the only station to show audience growth over a year ago as it cut Channel 5’s lead in half. KCAL-TV Channel 9 suffered big losses for its entire prime-time news block compared with the riot-enhanced numbers of a year ago, finishing third among the 10 p.m. newscasts KCOP-TV Channel 13 declined too, placing a distant fourth.

KTLA’s morning news program again prospered, improving on its numbers of a year ago even though this past month featured few extraordinary local news events. The lighthearted program crushed all three network morning shows. “Good Morning America” on KABC was second, “Today” on KNBC was third, while “This Morning” on KCBS lagged behind children’s cartoons and sitcoms on KCAL and KTTV.

In other highs and lows of the local May sweeps, one of the three annual major ratings periods used by stations to help determine advertising rates:

* “The Oprah Winfrey Show” scored top talk-show numbers again at 3 p.m. on KABC, helping the station to hang onto its afternoon news lead. But “Oprah’s” score was down about 13% from last year. “Rush Limbaugh” on KCOP finished second at 3:30 p.m. against the second half of “Oprah” in Nielsen, but he fared less well in Arbitron. “Geraldo” scored a lower rating than “Rush” for his hourlong program at 4 p.m. on KCBS in Nielsen, but he beat KCOP’s “Montel Williams.”

* In network news at 6:30 p.m., “ABC’s World News Tonight With Peter Jennings” on KABC walloped second place “NBC’s Nightly News With Tom Brokaw” on KNBC by about 90,000 homes. “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather” on KCBS finished another 50,000 homes back. Rather’s program also trailed “Cosby” reruns on KCOP, “Saved by the Bell” reruns on KTLA and “Wonder Years” reruns on KTTV.

* KABC’s game-show duo of “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” again captured the most viewers during the highly competitive 7-8 p.m. period.

* In late night, Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” on KNBC scored a win over KABC’s “Nightline.” “Cheers” reruns on KTLA, which beat the 11 p.m. news on KCBS, scored the second-highest late-night entertainment rating behind “The Tonight Show.” “The Arsenio Hall Show,” despite its much-ballyhooed 1,000th episode special with Madonna, finished last in its time period, the combination of “Cops” and “MASH” on KTTV and “Jane Whitney” on KCAL.

* Among Spanish-speaking households, both Arbitron and Nielsen showed KMEX-TV Channel 34 winning with its 6 p.m. news hour over KVEA-TV Channel 52. For the 11 p.m. newscast, KMEX won in Arbitron and KVEA led in Nielsen. For the period of 9 a.m. to midnight, as measured by Arbitron, KMEX attracted 58% of the Latino audience compared to KVEA’s 30% and KWHY-TV Channel 22’s 12%.