9News evening anchor team, l to r, Kathy Sabine, Adele Arakawa, Kyle Clark, Kim Christiansen, Drew Soicher. Photo by KUSA
The February 2016 ratings sweep shows a significant shift in morning viewing in the Denver market. While overall the number of homes using television (HUT) was down, powerhouse KUSA-Channel 9 not only won every morning newscast but was the only station to show year-to-year ratings increases in every weekday morning time period, 4:30 a.m. to 7 a.m.
KWGN-Channel 2’s “Daybreak” was flat; KMGH-Channel 7 and KCNC-Channel 4 were down, according to preliminary figures.
The month’s oddest stat: February saw a 50% rating increase for 9News at 4:30 a.m., (I’m told that’s in the wee morning). Are people getting up extra early to beat the increasingly awful traffic? Watching on treadmills? Napping at 4:30 in the afternoon? Who are you people?
Here’s the 6 a.m. breakdown:
9NEWS KUSA 2.2 rating, 22.1 share (percent of the viewing audience)
CBS4 Morning News KCNC 0.8, 8.0 share
7NEWS NOW KMGH 0.7, 7.2
GOOD DAY CO KDVR 0.6, 6.0
Ch 2 DAYBREAK KWGN 0.5, 4.7
CBS4 has a good story to tell, winning the race for No. 2 across the board.
Every station showed declines in the late news audience. (Because folks are getting up too early in the morn?) Here’s how the weekday 10 p.m. battle shapes up among adults 25-54 (the target demo for news):
9NEWS KUSA 3.0 rating, 10.2 share
CBS4 NEWS KCNC 1.6, 5.4
7NEWS KMGH 0.8, 2.8
FOX31 NIGHTSIDE KDVR 0.7, 2.4
At 5:30 p.m., the network newscasts follow the pattern: “The NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” remains on top with a 16 share, more than quadruple the No. 2, “The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” on KCNC, and five-times the share of “ABC World News with David Muir” on KMGH.
In late night, both Stephen Colbert and James Corden are up by double digits, but
Jimmy Fallon remains on top with a 2.16 rating, 8.6 share.
There’s much to debate when parsing the ratings. Broadcasters complain that the sample size is minute, the numbers fluctuate and nobody can explain this month’s massive overall decline in homes using television. Note Nielsen doesn’t measure tablets, iPhone or computer screen viewing. If you’re not watching on an old-fashioned TV, Nielsen isn’t counting you.
Smartphone penetration is 87 percent in Denver (the national average is 82 percent) and it’s a young market. So the wildly optimistic answer is, Millennials may be watching local TV news on their phones…
