WFAA dominates all but one newscast race in February sweeps

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot -- Feb. sweeps finals edition

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Missed by that much. WFAA8 came within less than inches of winning all four major local news battlegrounds, but settled for dominating victories at 5, 6 and 10 p.m. in the just-concluded February sweeps ratings wars.

The 6 a.m. laurels went to Fox4's Good Day, which rallied in the second half of the 20-day period before surviving a strong finishing kick by WFAA8's Daybreak on Wednesday's sweeps sign-off. The difference in the total homes Nielsens ended up as a statistically insignificant 244 homes, with Fox4 logging a 4.05 rating and WFAA8 a 4.04.

Fox4 had a bit more breathing room at 6 a.m. among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. It won that one by a comparatively whopping two-tenths of a rating point.

WFAA8 won the 10 p.m. wars for the fourth straight sweeps period in total homes, and for the third consecutive time among 25-to-54-year-olds. NBC5 previously had dominated those competitions for five years dating to Feb., 2002.

WFAA lost year-to-year audiences only at 5 p.m. in total homes, but still won comfortably in that measurement.

Fox4 took the early morning golds for the third straight sweeps period after running second last February to NBC5 in total homes and WFAA8 among 25-to-54-year-olds. The station also registered significant gains in the early evening newscast competitions, moving into second place in three of the four key ratings measurements.

CBS11 won't be shouting from the rooftops, but can take some comfort in showing year-to-year ratings gains in all four major newscast time periods. There's a kinda hush over at NBC5, though. The Peacock lost major ground across the board.

Also of note: Fox4's 9 p.m. local newscast, aided on some nights by American Idol lead-ins, averaged 172,928 D-FW homes in the sweeps. That beat the ratings averages of all competing network programming, which was a mix of originals and repeats in a strike-torn season. Fox4 ran a close second to ABC programming among 25-to-54-year-olds. Both are impressive showings, with Fox4 raking in all of the advertising revenue while its rivals get only a small slice of local ad time within their respective network programs.

Here are the complete results from the principal newscast battlegrounds, with gains or losses from February 2007 in parentheses. (Also note that there's been a bit of ratings inflation from year to year. Based on revised Nielsen estimates for this season, a rating point in D-FW equals 24,356 homes and 29,445 viewers in the 25-to-54 demo. Last February, the respective net worths were 23,800 homes and 28,700 viewers of the 25-to-54 persuasion.)

Check out Uncle Barky's blog for the latest in his examination of late night newscasts.