This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Spoiler alert! KUTV is going to win the late-news ratings competition for the May sweeps.OK, that's really not a spoiler. Channel 2 was way ahead after Week 1; way ahead after Week 2; and remains way ahead after Week 3.As a matter of fact, there's no suspense about the late-news numbers. Unless something on the order of a TV apocalypse occurs - a station loses it signal for five days or something - KUTV-Channel 2 will finish first by a wide margin, followed by KSL-Channel 5, KSTU-Channel 13 and KTVX-Channel 4.Here's where Nielsen has it after Week 3 (and we're talking about the 10 p.m. newscasts on Channels 2, 4 and 5 and the 9 p.m. newscast on Channel 13):KUTV-Channel 2: 11.4 rating/23 shareKSL-Channel 5: 6.6 rating/13 shareKSTU-Channel 13: 5.1 rating/10 shareKTVX-Channel 4: 3.5 rating/7 share(A rating point represents 1 percent of the 917,370 TV-equipped homes Nielsen estimates are in the Salt Lake Television market; a share point equals 1 percent of the homes where television is actually being watched at a given time.)A year-to-year comparison (May 2012-May 2013) shows the viewership for all four local stations dropping for their late newscasts - some more than others. Channel 4 is down 3 percent; Channel 2 is down 6 percent; Channel 13 is down 12 percent; Channel 5 is down 18 percent.Three weeks down, one week to go ...