Where The News Came First?

Folks at Channel 5 (and Channel 9) must be pretty frustrated this morning, after their aggressive coverage of the Ohio primary results last night.

Though there wasn’t a lot to talk about, Chanel 5 made the commitment of being on the air all night, 7:30-11:30 p.m., blowing off NBC programs. If you wanted to know what was going on here – or how few votes had been counted – you could tune into Channel 5.

Channel 9 pre-empted ABC at 9 p.m. – an hour earlier than scheduled -- to carry Mike Huckabee's concession, and stayed local through the 11 p.m. news.

Channel 19 did a full hour of election news at 10 p.m.

And then there's Channel 12, with the city's No. 1 newscasts in the morning, noon and 11 p.m. What did they do? Not much. They did their usual half-hour newscast on My64 at 10 p.m., and their 11 p.m. news.

It had to be frustrating for the other stations to look at the 11 p.m. ratings, and see that Channel 12 had the most viewers (as usual) for the least effort.

I watched much of Channel 5's election coverage. I give them credit for being there. In my opinion, there was too much commentary from Bill Cunningham and others. (Did Cunningham really say he wanted to drive a stake through Hillary Clinton's heart last night on 5?) Sometimes Channel 5 was behind, like when Sheree Paolello announced about 9:15 p.m. that Huckabee might drop out – while other stations were carrying his concession speech at that moment.

Channel 9 also did the right thing by going with elections over "According to Jim." Looking at the ratings, it's apparent that viewers found Channel 9's election coverage at 9 p.m., which beat Channel 5 at that point.

This is not the first time that Channel 12 has done minimal coverage on a big news event… and made money by carrying network shows and commercials, instead of losing money by pre-empting them. "Big Brother" at 9 p.m. was second in the time period, behind Fox's "New Amsterdam" premiere, and ahead of election news on Channels 9 and 5.

At 10 p.m., Channel 12's "Jericho" dropped to fourth, behind local news on Channels 19, 9 and 5, so there clearly was an appetite for election info at that hour. Channel 12's news on My64 was a distant fifth.

Here are the numbers:

8-9 p.m.: "American Idol" wins big (15.6 rating); Channel 5 election results fourth behind entertainment shows on 12 and 9.

9-10 p.m.
19: New Amsterdam, 9.6
12: Big Brother, 7.0
9: Election results, 5.6
5: Election results, 5.2

10-11 p.m.
19: Election results/news, 8.5 (Biggest local news rating for local news tonight, bigger than 5-9-12 at 11 p.m.)
9: Election results, 6.6
5: Election results, 4.8
12: Jericho, 4.7
64: Election results/news, 2.8
64: (10:30) Raymond, 3.6

11 p.m.
12: Election results/news, 7.6
9: Election results/news, 6.7
5: Election results/news, 4.4
19: Simpsons, 4.4

I don't know if last night may change viewing habits or hurt Channel 12 in the long run. But I'm guessing that some Channel 12 viewers wanting local election news last night switched to Channels 5 or 9 or 19.