A lot of people in television were worried that the writers strike would turn people off permanently to prime-time TV, sending them to the Internet, back to books or or even, God forbid, to spend quality time with their spouses. Maybe we'll be reading about a writers' strike baby boom in September, as in the recent Blizzard of '78 anniversary stories. To judge by February sweeps ratings, it seems late local TV news also took it in the shorts during the strike, bad news for the stations because sweeps ratings are used to set ad rates. Johnny Diaz writes in the Globe that even top-ranked WHDH saw a drop of 30,000 viewers from a year ago without new prime-time shows as a lead-in. WCVB was down a whopping 73,000 viewers, dropping from first place a year ago to third. WBZ shed 20,000.
However. Year-to-year comparisons may be misleading, as WFXT added an 11 p.m. newscast since last year, which Diaz notes drew 81,000 in February. OK for a startup. That fledgling newscast has as its lead-in the popular WFXT 10 p.m. news, which actually drew the highest viewer totals of any late newscast, with 184,000 according to Diaz.
WFXT's 10 o'clock newscast had strike-proof "American Idol" and other new Fox shows on many nights during February. But wait, this is complicated. WFXT had 238,000 viewers in February last year (I found that number here, it wasn't in the Globe story). So I think we have to wait for May sweeps results to see how much of the drops facing all the stations were the result of strike tumult and how many of those viewers are simply opting to watch WFXT at 11.
I tell you one thing, even with the drop from '07, Maria Stephanos' agent is happy with those February numbers. Stephanos anchors both 'FXT shows, and her star wattage - and, let's face it, her short-skirt-and-boots outfits - have made her perhaps the most popular local TV figure around at the moment. No knock on David Wade or his replacement Mark Ockerbloom, but Stephanos (above) is the face of that newscast. And it sure seems to be working out for Fox.
