One could say the results of the May ratings for WAVE, Raycom’s NBC affiliate in Louisville, Ky., was the best of times and the worst of times. It was the best of times because WAVE, for the first time in 11 years, was No. 1 at 11 among adults 25-54 according to the Nielsen ratings. […]
One could say the results of the May ratings for WAVE, Raycom’s NBC affiliate in Louisville, Ky., was the best of times and the worst of times.
It was the best of times because WAVE, for the first time in 11 years, was No. 1 at 11 among adults 25-54 according to the Nielsen ratings.
It was the worst of times because WAVE was rated fourth in the demo at 6 a.m., and third at 6 p.m., according to Nielsen, but both newscasts were rated No. 1 in the demos and households by Rentrak.
So what does a general manager do when there’s such a disparity?
“We’ve been actively trying to get Nielsen to explain some things,” says Ken Selvaggi, WAVE’s GM. “Because it doesn’t make sense to be first in one and last in another.”
The difference is costing the station revenue.
“It could cost us significant money, I mean, it already has,” says Selvaggi, “and that is what is very frustrating.”
“We pay them top dollar to begin with for the rating service, and it ends up costing us more because we see numbers that are totally different than what we see in Rentrak.”
According to Selvaggi, Rentrak measures 93,000 homes in the market, while Nielsen measures 400.
“So we question,” says Selvaggi.
Given the wide sampling differences of homes measured between the two services, does he trust Rentrak more? Selvaggi says, “That’s kind of simplistic, but that’s what your gut says.”
In an email response, Billy McDowell, Raycom’s VP of research writes: “There are a few instances where the two services report different levels, and we do look to see if the difference is a result of Nielsen sampling or Rentrak modeling.”
But McDowell also writes, “We have subscribed to both services for quite a while now and it has impressed me how similar the two services have been on a household level.”
Selvaggi says WAVE’s win at 11 is due to doing quality work.
“We were nominated for 22 Emmys this year…and won a regional Murrow last year for overall excellence. So we know we’re doing quality work.”
Selvaggi says WAVE had an “incredible month of May on the digital screen and you don’t get that much digital activity during the month of May without doing quality work.”
“I believe if you win the digital screens, you’ll win the television screen.”
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