The Nach Attack: What the November Sweeps Will Mean for Philly
The November sweeps season starts tomorrow. While the Philadelphia market now uses “Local People Meters,” which measure ratings on a continual basis, sweeps-oriented network programming means the traditional sweeps months of November, February, May and July are still important to local stations. Expect lots of “news” stories about losing weight, reporters visiting network shows, and sex.
Of course, in Philly, 6 ABC will come in first place as it has done for pretty much the last 30 years — but there’s still plenty of potential industry drama to keep an eye on this month:
• Will the CBS 3 weekday morning news, which changed anchors (Liz Keptner for Susan Barnett) and meteorologists (Maria LaRosa for Brooks Tomlin), improve its ratings?
• Will Fox 29’s Good Day Philadelphia improve its ratings with new co-anchor John Anderson?
• Will the 10 show on NBC 10 get any ratings at 11 a.m. against The View and The Price Is Right?
In Other News
Speaking of 10, co-host Lori Wilson’s “shaving off my muff” flub from a couple of weeks ago is up to 267,000 hits on YouTube. Maybe 10 could attract more viewers if it just kept showing that clip?
And speaking of Good Day’s Anderson, according to a report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (as seen on the industry web site tvspy.com), his wife, Kristin Anderson, will remain a reporter at Cleveland’s WKYC through the end of the year. No word yet if she will also join the station when she moves to Philadelphia with the couple’s two children. Fox 29 already has one married couple on staff: Sue Serio and Bill Vargus.
The Eagles-Vikings game earned a 26.0 rating/51 share of the audience on Sunday, around 764,660 households. Expect that number to get surpassed this week for the “Sunday Night Football” battle between the Eagles and Cowboys. An hour before the game, NBC 10 will air Football Night in Philly with Vai Sikahema, John Clark and Jade McCarthy.
Tiki Barber, an analyst for Football Night, should be much more in his element than when he was practically emasculated during a segment with Neil Sedaka on The Today Show last week.
Jackie Meretsky, a Weather Plus meteorologist for NBC 10, is filling in at 5 p.m. on NBC 10 and at 10 p.m. on myNetworkTV 17 this week. According to an NBC 10 spokesperson, the station is continuing its search for another meteorologist to join Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz, Bill Henley, Karen Thomas and Dave Warren.
PBS heartthrob Ken Burns will discuss his series The War at the National Constitution Center on November 12th at 7 p.m. Reservations are required; call 215-409-6700.
My conversation about the television industry with radioinsight.com’s Chris Roberts will be played on pod25.com beginning tomorrow.
Laura discusses television every Thursday at 8:45 a.m. on “The Jim Foxwell Show” on WBCB 1490-AM. See more of her work and sign up for her e-mail alerts at lauranachman.net.