Spanish TV Viewing +57% In NYC.

In an historic ratings upset, for the first sweep in New York TV history, a major network-owned station has lost every key local weekday news race to a Spanish-language TV station. In the July 2002 sweep Spanish-language Univision 41 (WXTV) beat CBS/Viacom’s WCBS-TV Channel 2 in every key weekday local news race where the two stations compete directly according to Nielsen Station Index (NSI) household ratings. Univision 41 finished the July 2002 sweep with the highest sign-on to sign-off rank ever scored by a Spanish-language TV station in New York, fifth place in a tie with Fox TV’s WNYW Channel 5. Sweeps are the four, four-week periods each year when the audiences of TV stations nationwide are measured to set advertising rates.

Univision 41 and Tribune’s WPIX Channel 11 are the only New York TV stations which can boast that each of their key local weekday news programs has increased in rating in the July 2002 sweep when compared with the July 2001 sweep.

Here are the ratings:

* Univision 41’s 6 am – 7 am “Noticias 41 Al Despertar” (Channel 41 News at Dawn) is up 100% from 0.6/3 to a 1.2/6 NSI rating/share, beating the 0.8/4 scored by WCBS/2.
* Univision 41’s 6 pm – 6:30 pm “Noticias 41” (Channel 41 News) with anchors Rafael Pineda and Denisse Oller is up 33% from 2.7/6 to 3.6/7 NSI, beating WCBS/2’s 2.6/5.
* Univision 41’s 11 pm “Noticias 41” with Pineda and Oller is up 43% from fourth place 2.3/4 to third place 3.3/6 NSI, its highest rank ever, to beat fourth place WCBS/2 for the first sweep ever.

* In New York’s 10 pm news race the biggest percentage gains are scored by WPIX/11. The “WB11 News at Ten” with anchors Kaity Tong and Jim Watkins and up 11% to second place 3.1/5 NSI from third place 2.8/5 last year. WNYW/5 leads with 4.8/8, up 7% from 4.5/7 last year, while WWOR/9 slides to third with 3.0/5, down 12% from 3.4/5 last year.
* WPIX/11’s “WB11 Morning News,” scored 1.3/5 NSI weekdays from 6 am to 8 am during the July 2002 sweep, up 30% from the 1.0/4 it scored in the July 2001 sweep. By contrast, each of its major English-language 6 am news competitors is down, except for WCBS/2. WNBC/4 with 2.9/14, is down 17% from 3.5/18. WABC/7 with 2.6/12, is down 13% from 3.0/15. WNYW/5 with 1.4/7, is down a whopping 39% from 2.3/12 last year. WCBS/2 scored 0.8/4 vs. 0.7/5 last year.

In other good news for WPIX/11, the station reclaimed third place overall in Gotham’s total day ratings race, a position it lost to WCBS/2 when its transmitting antenna was destroyed on September 11, 2001. WPIX/11 scored 2.6/7 for third place sign-on to sign-off (Monday – Sunday, 6 am to 2 am) vs. 2.5/6 for fourth place WCBS/2.

Spanish-language TV viewing in New York is up 57% for the July 2002 sweep compared to its level in the July 2001 sweep. Total day viewing for Univision 41 (WXTV) alone is up 33% from a 1.5 NSI rating and 4 share to a 2.0 NSI rating and 5 share, putting Univision 41 in a tie for fifth place overall with Fox Television’s WNYW Channel 5, the highest sweeps rank ever for a Spanish-language TV station in New York. Each New York Nielsen Station Index rating point represents 73,010.6 TV households.