The Herald-Sun from Durham, North Carolina • 85

TV WEEKLY April Week SUPPLEMENT TO THE IRLD DURHAM MORNING HERALD Ratings War OUR ARBITRON TELEVISION Durham Raleigh To Escalate February 1979 Next Monday MEN JIM BUIE And DICK TAYLOR the news habit of the Triangle is to I By Herald Staff Writers watch from 6 to 7, we'll go with that and let our news fight for The ratings war over television news There have also been some personnel will escalate next week when WPTF-TV changes at WPTF-TV. Woody Durham, shifts its daily newscasts into the 6 to 7 p.m. slot, setting up a three-way head-tohead battle for the evening news audience. The change will take effect Monday, April 9. Channel 28's newscast has been in the 7:30 to 8 p.m.

time slot since the station began a local news program October 1, 1977. With the new 6 to 6:30 time period, the station will scrap its soft newsmagazine format for more traditional hard news. The NBC Nightly News will move from 7 o'clock to 6:30. Competition among news programs in the Triangle and across the nation has been increasing in recent years. That's because local news shows usually have the highest ratings of any locally produced shows.

They yield the most revenue for the stations, because profits aren't shared with the networks. And the higher a station's ratings, the more can charge for advertising. For example, the No. 1 rated Action News 5 at 6 p.m. on Channel 5 commands $600 for one 30 second advertising spot.

The lower rated Eyewitness News on Channel 11 charges $330 for a spot at 6 p.m. And Channel 28, which attracts the smallest overall audience of the three stations, receives an average of $80 for a 30-second spot in its TV-28 Nightly TV-28 drew a dismal 4 to 7 percent of the television audience during the last four ratings periods on weeknights from to 8 p.m. By 7 o'clock, 250,000 people had already seen an hour of news on Channels 5 or 11. Channel 28 had to settie for leftovers. "Our 7 to 8 p.m.

news alternative has reached a plateau," said John Pearcy, local sales manager for WPTF-TV. "If brought to the station in 1977 as news and sports director, has been named full-time sports director. Max Powell, a veteran of television news in the Triangle market, is now news director. Dan Giddens, Durham Life Broadcasting's (WPTF- TV's parent company) vice-president for news, said, "It's not that people don't watch UHF or TV-28. because we know that if we have a product that the people want, we can get numbers." Giddens said WPTF-TV's news department would begin to share resources with WPTF radio.

"I think the people who have listened to WPTF for half a century will be delighted to learn that WPTF-TV is entering the hard news field. I want WPTF-TV to be held in the same regard as WPTF radio." he said. There are no plans now to start an 11 p.m. newscast on WPTF-TV, according to Giddens. He said that with the new arrangement for sharing staff, the radio and TV news departments will have a total of 27 news people.

Channel 5 has a news staff of 30. WRAL-TV news director Ben Waters said TV-28's news move "could help to bolster the total number of people watching news in the market and I welcome the competition. Where's there's good strong competition, the viewer benefits." Fred Barber, vice president and general manager of WRAL-TV, says he's confident Channel 5 can maintain its No. 1 position at 6 o'clock. "This is the best ratings period we've ever had," Barber said.

"And I think we'll have an even stronger showing in In-Depth 28 Of On Report Page 3 Nielsen FEBRUARY, la Trotte 1979 Veners The Book: TV's Bible the May (ratings) book. Once you develop a loyal news audience, it doesn't According to the Nielsen and Arbitron rating surveys just released, WRAL-TV's Action News 5 is a powerhouse, one of the strongest local news programs in the nation. During the February ratings period, 160,000 homes tuned in consistently to Charlie Gaddy, Bobbie Batista and crew. Nationally, The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite leads the network news ratings, but locally, ABC's World News Tonight has pulled ahead as a result of the strength of Action News 5. Nielsen gave ABC's World News Tonight a 52 percent share of the audience for the February book, with the CBS Evening News getting 34 percent.

Arbitron gave ABC a 41 percent share and CBS a 32 percent share. Channel 5 began dominating the news market about a year ago, according to Barber. The station invested considerable money and doubled the number of reporters and photographers on its news staff. In response to Action News 5's ratings success, Channel 11's Eyewitness News went through a major change in format last fall, and the station doubled its public affairs staff. "We're still working hard to become No.

1," said WTVD General Manager Dick Appleton. The February Nielsens showed a slight growth in Channel 11's share of the news audience, but Channel 5 still dominates. It has a 50 percent share of the audience, compared with Channel 11's 29 percent. a brand new format," said Jim Duncan, Channel 11's program director, no way for us to expect to be No. 1 in news.

It's hard to change viewer habits, and we're constantly fine tuning our news. We've got some catching up to do. Channel 5 has a good product, and they're good competition." "We think our total news package will Duncan added, "and we'll be patient with it." TV Index Sunday Daytime 2 Sunday 3 Weekday Daytime Page 4 Monday 5 Tuesday 6 Wed. Page 7 Thursday Evening Page 8 Friday Evening 9 Sat. Page 10 Sat.

Evening Page 11 TV Page 7 TV Page 8 TV Page 9.