The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 145

ARTS Tie Atlanta journal The Atlanta Constitution Sunday, February 26, 1995 N5 Switch: One network's static is another network's success 5 i network) has gone from 12.6 to 13.1 in prime time. NBC is up from 11.5 to 11.7 and Fox has increased from 7.2 to 8.1. CBS' picture is muddled, Ramsey maintains, by the loss of the hugely successful Winter Olympics, which enabled the network to win last year's ratings race. "CBS has been No. 3 before and they'll be No.

3 again," he says. "They've also been No. 1 before and they'll be No. 1 again. This is a cyclical business." Nationwide, according to David Poltrack, CBS executive vice president of research, the New World stations switch cost the network only 0.2 of a rating point in prime time.

Ratings, however, are way down in the new affiliate cities. In Milwaukee, CBS has lost 45 percent of its prime-time viewers. In Detroit, prime-time viewership is down 40 percent. The prime-time decline in Atlanta 30 percent "is actually less than we expected," Poltrack says. "We expected to lose 45 to 50 percent." The worst blow, he says, is the 6:30 p.m.

"CBS Eve- ning News," which has lost as much as 75 percent of its audience in at least one month since the switch partly because WGNX doesn't have a local news program leading into it (instead, the station airs reruns of Ramsey says WGNX will launch an early local news program, but has yet to set a time frame: "It will be this year." In the meantime, outlying viewers, analysts and network and station executives are still having to somehow get a clear picture of CBS through the static. Vivian Haywood of Barnesville, since plugging into cable, picks up "60 Minutes" just fine. But, should cable fail her, she's got another favorite show she watches on the Fox affiliate, at 7 on weeknights: "Wheel of Fortune." It comes in loud and clear. nil. in in I II I II CBS and CBS' lows Fox Broadcasting Co.

Fox's highs "The X-Files" (with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) has seen its Atlanta ratings skyrocket on WAGAChannel 5, partly because of Channel 5's higher visibility. In January 1994 the show aired on WATLChannel 36 and was seen in roughly 90,600 homes. Last month that number more than doubled to 1 8 1 ,200 homes. "60 Minutes," CBS' long-running newsmagazine with Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Andy Rooney and company, now draws half as many Atlanta area viewers as it once did. The program's average viewership of 347,300 homes in January 1994 on WAGAChannel 5 fell to 181,200 in January 1995 after the network's switch to WGNXChannel 46.

Continued from I son estimates), and fanned speculation that it's up for sale. "We no longer question if, but when, CBS will be sold," wrote Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif, in her Feb. 9 report on the company. Meanwhile, longtime CBS president Howard Stringer is leaving to head a group of phone companies developing a network to compete with cable. In Atlanta, the CBS picture is even worse.

Sign-on to sign-off viewership has plummeted by 7 ratings points in the past year. When CBS was at WAGAChan-nel the average rating, sign-on to sign-off, for February "94 was 11.2. This February, through the first two weeks, CBS on WGNXChannel 46 averaged a 4.2 rating. That's an average daily loss of about 105,000 viewers. Mn contrast, WAGA has become the No.

1 Fox prime-time station in the nation since the switch, led by "Melrose Place" with Heather Locklear, "Martin," and "The X-Files," all with improved ratings on WAGA. The station's total viewership has dropped sharply since the switch, from a 11.2 to a 7.3 average rating (an average daily loss of about 59,000 viewers). With its Fox affiliation, however, WAGA has more local ad time to sell since Fox has fewer network programs. As a result, WAGA's revenues were up 12 percent in January, says station manager Jack Sander. The station also has beefed up its local news coverage by running an hourlong 10 p.m.

newscast instead of the 30 minutes it ran at 11 p.m. as a CBS i The 10 p.m. news ratings are lower than they were at 11 p.m., but better than the station had anticipated, Sander says. 'l "Obviously, we're thrilled and delighted 30 days after the change to be doing as well as we're doing," he says. "We're going to do even better when you figure in the demographics." Because Fox programs skew to younger viewers, which advertisers consider more desirable, Sander said the station is getting IS percent to 20 percent more in advertising revenues in prime time than it did with CBS.

Sander says the station has been hit hardest by the switch to Fox in the afternoons. "Our sign-on to sign-off is down primarily because of soap operas," he says. Weekdays, between 12:30 and 4 p.m., WAGA has lost more than two-thirds of its viewers. Over at WGNX, station manager Herman Ramsey with his own story to spin wonders what all the CBS fuss is about Since the switch, WGNX's ratings are up (from 2.8 a year ago, to 4.2), and its revenues have jumped 30 percent, primarily because, as a network affiliate, WGNX is selling its advertising time for five to 10 times as much as it did a year ago. "There is a network story and there is a station story," says Ramsey, who, as much as anybody, was instrumental in WGNX linking up with CBS.

Days after New World announced it was switching WAGA from CBS to Fox, Ramsey fired sey claims. "Are CBS ratings lower on WGNX than they were on WAGA?" Ramsey asks. "Of course they are. Is WGNX in trouble? Of course not. Is CBS behind in the ratings race? Yes.

But it's not the end of the world, it's really not. It's not that big of a deal on a national basis." In fact, from January 1994 to January of this year, viewership on CBS is off by two full ratings points in prime time from 13.1 to 11.1. The other networks have seen increases. ABC (the No. 1 off a memo to WGNX parent Tribune Broadcasting outlining how and why his station should become the next Atlanta CBS affiliate.

"If you look at this as a station story, this is champagne corks popping," he says. "From the station perspective," says Ramsey, "our share of market has improved, our market revenues have increased it's a wonderful thing." At midpoint in the February ratings sweeps, "The Young and the Restless" is winning its 12:30 p.m. time slot, an indication that some Atlantans are finally sorting out December's channel switch. "If people want to watch a show, they'll find it," says Ramsey. The difficulties viewers outside the city are having picking up WGNX's signal are more problematic, says the executive, but not something the station can't overcome: "We had a meeting about putting up another antenna in the mountains so those people can pick us up.

We haven't made any decisions. But that would solve the problem." Ramsey estimates that 150 to 200 viewers have called and written to complain about reception. For some the problem is as simple as not having a UHF antenna. For others, the station advises them to hook up, like Vivian Haywood did, to the local cable system. In any case, both WGNX's initially lower ratings on CBS programs (compared with when they were on WAGA), and CBS' much-touted difficulties are unwarranted, even alarmist, Ram Seven Time Grammy Award Winner i' Damnico Fetti, Sloping Girt.

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