Those picture-window studios on the network morning news shows providing a view of the New York street scene don’t seem too thrilling to people in Los Angeles. And news can seem a tad stale after a three-hour time delay.
That’s what gave local stations like KTLA-TV Channel 5 and KTTV-TV Channel 11 the idea to launch their own morning news shows in the early 1990s, going head to head with the powerful networks for the first time. Initially, it was a great success, with both stations rapidly picking up viewers by offering more local news while the network shows languished. KTLA dominated the morning news race from 1993 to 1997.
“When those (local) shows launched, they pretty much handed (the networks their) heads on a platter,” said Jack Feuer, media editor of Adweek.
But don’t count out the networks. Charles and Diane and Matt and Katie are back to leading the pack in Los Angeles.
During the first weeks of the November sweeps, from Nov. 4 to 21, ABC’s “Good Morning America” led the morning news race with a 3.8 rating in L.A., a major hike compared with last year’s 2.8. NBC’s “Today Show” was No. 2 with 3.3, falling from 3.6.
Of the Big Three, only CBS is struggling in Los Angeles; its “Early Show” languished in the cellar with a 0.9. rating during the first weeks of November, down from 1.3 a year ago.
All three network shows have repositioned themselves, and have met with mixed success.
“Today” began 44 years ago and, until the November sweeps, had been consistently No. 1 in Los Angeles since May 1998. It moved its production studio to the first floor of Rockefeller Center in 1994 and has been eroding “Good Morning America’s” lead in most of the country ever since.
Launched 28 years ago to compete with “Today,” “Good Morning America” became the leading morning news program in the 1980s, but then suffered a ratings slump amid anchor and content changes.
Veteran newsman Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer have served as interim anchors since January and helped the show regain some footing. Two months ago, ABC moved the show into a glass-walled studio in Times Square.
“We’re doing pretty well,” said spokesman Bill Burton at KABC-TV Channel 7. “We’ve seen the ratings steadily climb up with Gibson and Sawyer.”
CBS got into morning news shortly after NBC in the 1950s. But the show has been much more volatile than the offerings from the other two networks, changing formats, anchors and names frequently.
The current version debuted on Nov. 2, just in time for the critical sweeps period. The network hired Bryant Gumbel, former anchor of the “Today Show,” in an effort to revive the struggling franchise and renamed it “The Early Show.” Its failure to catch hold puts the show’s future in question.
Just as the ratings figures differ for the network and local shows, so do audience demographics.
In Los Angeles, “Good Morning America” skews more toward women than any of the competing newscasts, with 71 percent of its audience made up of women over 18, according to recent figures from Nielsen Media Research. That’s a big contrast to KTTV’s “Good Day L.A.,” a show with one male anchor and two comely female anchors, whose audience consists of only 54 percent women.
KTTV and KTLA also skew toward a younger audience than the network offerings. On KTTV, 46 percent of the audience consists of women 18 to 49 and 39 percent are women 25 to 54; on NBC’s “Today Show,” 32 percent of viewers are women 18 to 49 and 37 percent are women 25 to 54.
Of course, demographics, like ratings, tend to shift over time. And there is so much competition for morning news in Los Angeles that no one show dominates in any category for long particularly because they are all continually tweaking their formats.
“There are no landslides because there are so many choices here,” said Pete Noyes, producer for “Special Assignments” at KCBS and a broadcast journalism teacher at USC and Cal State Northridge. “The market tends to be over-saturated and the shows seem similar. TV news tends to ape each other. Everybody jumps on the same bandwagon.”
