5 Things You Need To Know About May TV Ratings

Five things you need to know about the May sweeps local news ratings:
--Viewing dropped for newscasts on all stations, except Ch 12's 6-7 a.m. "Good Morning Cincinnati" (not "Good Morning Tristate" as I originally wrote).
--Ch 12 won all weekday newscasts again, except for the 5-6:30 p.m. block won by Ch 9 a usual.
--Ch 5 was last for all newscasts. At 11 p.m., more TV homes were watching "The Simpsons" on Ch 19 than Ch 5 news (D'oh!), as in February.
--Ch 19 moved up to second at 6-7 a.m., from 4th a year ago, and won at 10 p.m., as always.
--The audience share for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox prime-time viewing was down 10% from last May and 13% from two years ago. At the same time, TV viewing was down only 6% from two years ago. The combined 11 p.m. local news audience share dropped 17% from last year, and 25% from two years ago.

The prime-time audience loss was attributed to an increasing number of people watching network TV shows online, or time-shifting their viewing on digital video recorders, and the nice weather. Nielsen Media Research does not count online viewing and DVR viewing in overnight ratings.

The 11 p.m. audience drop can be the result of two factors – fewer people watching prime-time, and a lifestyle shift with people going to bed earlier. NBC's fourth-place prime-time ratings dropped 31% here from a year ago. Ch 5 averaged only a 5.3 rating 8-11 p.m., and a 4.4 rating at 11 p.m. for news.

Two years ago, when NBC was more competitive, Ch 5 jumped to second at 11 p.m. in May for the first time in 13 years. Ch 5 has been third since.

Here are the ratings, TV homes and audience shares for May TV news:

7-6 a.m.
WKRC-TV 4.9 43,458 19%
WXIX-TV 3.5 31,041 14%
WCPO-TV 3.3 26,268 13%
WLWT-TV 2.6 23,059 10%

Noon
WKRC-TV 5.1 45,232 19%
WCPO-TV 4.2 37,250 15%
WLWT-TV 1.7 15,077 6%

5-6:30 p.m.
WCPO-TV 7.0 62,083 17%
WKRC-TV 6.0 53,214 14%
WLWT-TV 3.3 29,268 8%

10 p.m.
WXIX-TV 7.0 62,083 11%
WSTR-TV 2.0 17,738 3%

11 p.m.
WKRC-TV 11.4 101,106 22%
WCPO-TV 7.7 68,291 15%
WLWT-TV 4.4 39,023 9%
(WXIX: The Simpsons, 4.58/9%)

Source: Nielsen Media Research