CircleSeven 1944 Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune states that ratings for longtime news leader in the state of Utah, KSL 5, continues to plummet, while KUTV's ratings continue to rise. But the shocking thing from all of this is KUTV is a Sinclair station. Remember they bought this from Four Points Media over a year and some change ago. But the ratings rise have been favoring Channel 2 since 2010. They cited the reason for KSL's ratings downward spiril is they emphasize heavy on soft news stories and NBC primetime ratings declines, as of late. This could be another episode of 'How The Mighty Have Fallen'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Yet, KUSA is still #1 in Denver even though ratings for NBC are quite low. I guess it is different in every market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasTVNews 1366 Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 KSL 5 would have continue to been the news leader if they haven't dropped Eyewitness News, in which it should have stayed in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElliotJones 52 Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 KSL 5 would have continue to been the news leader if they haven't dropped Eyewitness News, in which it should have stayed in the first place. explain this one. please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WXmanTim 88 Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 The accompanying graphical timeline on this story really tells the tale of their fall from grace (so to speak). But the driving force behind the fall, Mark Willes is the same person who ran the LA Times into the ground (LA Weekly has a good write-up of the whole sordid tale) and more-or-less forced the Chandler family to sell to Tribune about a dozen years ago. He apparently wanted the church-owned (but up until then, more or less independently run) KSL to "reflect" the church's values in it's reporting (not just in it's programming decisions). (edited to add) From an STL Tribune article announcing Willes' hire, we get this nugget: Willes believes the Deseret News and other media properties can produce lively and pertinent products for the world that are grounded in morality, civility, integrity and respect for people's differing views. He thinks the audience for values-based news and entertainment is huge and exists far beyond Utah and the Mormon church. What it sounds like viewers got was the nightly church bulletin update, and they predictably turned away in droves. As KUTV GM Kent Crawford notes: "I don’t think the viewer really resonates with that. Nor do they care," he added. "They would rather have an informative newscast that is prepared professionally and delivered in a manner and style that they would like. I think that’s a big factor Willes has since been fired (or retired, depending on whose view you take). But as noted in the article, KUTV's ratings rise started before the sale to Sinclair. To express shock (as the headline does) that they should be number one simply because they're a Sinclair station is as silly as...well... TexasTVNews, on 06 Mar 2013 - 12:38, said: KSL 5 would have continue to been the news leader if they haven't dropped Eyewitness News, in which it should have stayed in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhratbrat 423 Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 I agree with what Tim said. Although KSL in a way was right in trying to go after the populace, the problem is that the station already reflects its views in the way that they handle the station. If it just happened that CBS2 benefitted from some of the poor decisions made at KSL than ok. The other thing (and this was a trend noticed by other Four Points stations especially KEYE) was that there was a more independent view of how the newscast was done without seemingly overpowering management over them. So it wasn't something that had to come down for ownership, it was more from station management including news directors and other key personnel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hathawaynson2 38 Posted May 4, 2013 Share Posted May 4, 2013 Well, if you are talking about the legacy stations that Sinclair owns and or operates (pre 2012), those are number one or number two in the markets that they own and after that the newly owned and or operated stations that it owns (post 2012) are number one in those markets that Sinclair owns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4167 Posted May 5, 2013 Share Posted May 5, 2013 KSL 5 would have continue to been the news leader if they haven't dropped Eyewitness News, in which it should have stayed in the first place. KSL can just as well blame NBC's historically horrid February fifth-place showing in prime time, and the slow-motion implosion at Today. And that only goes so far. News branding is the least of their concerns. See WXmanTim's post above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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