TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Joe Moore dethroned
at 10 by ‘News 8’The 10 p.m. news on KHON has been beaten for the first time since it rose to ratings dominance in the mid-1980s. It was beaten by NBC affiliate KHNL "News 8," with Howard Dashefsky and Jodi Leong.
It took the 2002 Olympics on U.S. soil to give KHNL the late news victory; Fox-affiliate KHON was No. 1 at 6 p.m. but lost five points from Feb. 2001, going from 17 ratings points to 12.
"Obviously this is an Olympics-aided phenomenon," said KHNL Vice President and General Manager John Fink.
"This is the first time ever that Joe (Moore) did not win a rating book," he said, "primarily due to the Olympics, but we kept the audience at 10 o'clock."
When the Winter Olympics were carried by KGMB TV via CBS network from Lillehammer, Norway, and Nagano, Japan, news viewers "went back over to Joe Moore at 10," he said.
The rating is the percentage of overall households using television that are watching any given show or station, while "share" is the percentage of those households that are watching TV. In Hawaii, every point represents about 4,000 households, according to Fink.
KHON officials expected to take a bigger hit.
"We were very pleased with (the ratings)," said Vice President and General Manager Bill Spellman, noting that "we competed this time against the most formidable of Olympics, on American soil," which draws much higher viewership.
Spellman didn't see the one-point win in the adult demographic battle as that big a deal.
"They did a nine, we did an eight; if I'm KHNL I'm quite disappointed in the numbers," he said.
There was little if any counter-programming on the other networks, such as ABC. "They basically gave up on the (Nielsen ratings) book," said KITV Vice President and General Manager Mike Rosenberg. CBS-affiliate KGMB lost only one point in prime time, according to Director of Marketing and Business Development Bernie Armstrong, "Our prime (programming) held up," he said, citing viewer loyalty to CBS shows.
NBC's prime-time programming averaged an 18 rating with a 32 share, Rosenberg said, "and of that 18 points they ended up with a 12, which means they held on to about 66 percent of their lead-in (and the rest of the viewers went elsewhere)."
"Most media buyers throw this book out," Spellman said, "because of the fact that the Olympics changes everything." Fink also expects ad agencies to "extrapolate and take out the Olympics," he said, and officials at KGMB agree.
"In every other non-Olympics book we're a share point apart and it's a horse race generally," said General Manager Lynne Mueller.
"People are going to load up for May," or the next ratings battle, Armstrong said.
The Nielsen ratings in May are "by far the most significant because that book is on the shelf for the longest period," Mueller said, "May is the book that's used to plan for the fall season and annual (advertising) business."
"To me, ratings are for sales and advertising people," said Moore.
"It's nice to be No. 1, but when you are, you need to ask yourself why are we No. 1? Is it because you do the best job covering the news, and if that's not the reason, what's to be proud of?"
Moore is happy with the station's news product and is unconcerned about not winning the 10 p.m. battle this time around.
"The mark of a real winner," Moore said, "is not being No. 1 once but repeatedly at six and 10."
Moore left KGMB TV in 1978 to become the sports anchor at KHON; he became news anchor a couple years later and within four or five years has anchored Hawaii's top-rated 6 and 10 o'clock news programs.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com
