Scarabin Blog

Jason L. Scarabin
Local TV News Viewing; Audiences
Communications 391–Dr. Kay Egan
September 28, 1994

My first impressions of Television ratings including local are that they are quite absurd. The ratings come from where and from whom. I have never believed that an accurate account of viewers could be obtained in a reasonable and non-intruding way. Personally, I am still quite ill-informed about how this system works. Companies such as A. C. Nielsen and Arbitron have been foreign words to me for most of my life. In doing some research into this topic, I have discovered some answers yet still remain a bit confused as to how accurate these ratings are and why stations and advertisers rely so heavily on them.
In response to the first article I read, I learned that Arbitron did not have a very significant role in the ratings race. The article explains how Nielsen would not necessarily monopolize the business now that Arbitron is no longer a competitor. Arbitron mostly capitalized on the big markets where stations bought both services. Arbitron’s President Stephen B. Morris said, “It wasn’t economical anymore for them to carry both services. We obviously didn’t do a good enough job of differentiating ourselves.”
Despite all of this, Arbitron has complete domination of the local radio ratings business and plans to develop new ideas for measuring radio and broadcast and cable TV. (Advertising Age, pg. 23).
My opinion of this article is that there is fierce competition in this ratings business. Also, I have learned just how big this business is. It was mentioned that Arbitron’s local TV ratings business generated $70 million in revenues.
The second article I read dealt with local TV stations having corrections policies or not. It seems that the stations are put in a sticky situation because the more they are correcting themselves from their mistakes, the more their credibility may decrease. I must say that I agree with the fact that TV News should have corrections policies because people want accuracy in the news. However, I also realize that because of the need for urgency in “getting the story out” can be extremely crucial as well. This is certainly a dilemma facing the local TV News industry.
Without the corrections policies in place, viewers would tend to think that stations are hiding mistakes. But with the policies in place, they may get the impression that the station is no longer a very credible source and may discontinue watching that station.
In this article all news departments reported that errors are acknowledged and corrected on the air. However, sixty-percent said they do not have a formal correction policy and only twelve-percent had written policies. The stations who felt that airing corrections was beneficial cited things such as credibility, truthfulness, integrity, and even avoiding lawsuits. Some of these stations also cited disadvantages such as “weakens credibility, draws attention to mistakes, and causes confusion for viewers.”
It is also worth mentioning that there were two kinds of errors, objective and subjective. The study found that stations were more likely to correct an objective mistake such as the wrong date and time as opposed to a subjective one like misquoting someone. (Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 1, pgs. 166-172).
My opinion certainly agrees with the conclusion of the article which says that it is professionally responsible to report errors. The bottom line is that these reported errors will build credibility because people want accurate and factual news.
In the third article I read, I learned that local TV News should be given more credit than it has been given in the past. In fact the article says that local news gets a slightly larger audience than its network counterpart.
The article reports on research done based on two themes which are: “1)that local TV News is passive, borrowing its news agenda (the ‘what’) from local newspapers–and relying on police scanners for a daily parade of disaster and crime stories, 2)local television news gatekeeping decisions (the ‘why’) are dominated by the visual imperative to show the viewer something of intrinsic interest.” (Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 4, pg.857).
This information really surprised me. I had never thought that a local television station would get its information from the newspapers. It had always occurred to me that it was quite the opposite case; that is, newspapers get their information from the television stations. In the article, it states that rarely does a local television news originate news; “they are parasites.” (ibid, pg.858).
The article also suggests that local television news seems to be veering away from the traditional approach of “proximity, timeliness or consequence.” They seem to be worried more with showing something visually that will captivate the audience and they don’t care how they get that something. As a result, they will receive higher ratings. (ibid, pg.858).
Despite this news from the article, I discovered that a research dilemma had been reached. How can they properly analyze content and make a judgment as to whether or not a news station is reporting sensationalism or not? For example, is the election of an anti-American president in South Africa good or bad news? Good because democracy prevailed or bad because he/she is anti-American?
Research was done to resolve this dilemma. Five-Hundred forty-three stories were selected to be analyzed from thirty-four newscasts. The researcher noted the topic, the spontaneity of the topic, rejected stories and why they were rejected, etc. (ibid, pg.859).
The researcher found the contrary to popular belief about daily newspapers being a dominant source for stories. He/She found that “newspapers were the primary source of only seven of the one-hundred thirty-two news stories analyzed.” (ibid, pg.860).
The conclusion was made that local news stations are not as parasitic or sensationalistic as aforementioned. Local newscasts are very “capable of rare bursts of enterprise reporting.” Oftimes they will take apart an existing news story and take a completely different approach to that same story that another news source may have approached. Surprisingly, the study found that twenty-one percent of the topics fell into the general political category while twenty percent fell into the violent crime category. (ibid, pg.861).
The article concludes also that one must realize that within a given market there are only so many stories to be told. So, the challenge is not only to find a new story, but more importantly, to find an existing story and approach and tell it in a unique way.
I really learned from the information in this article. Before reading the article I thought local TV news was reasonably credible, but I didn’t know why. In addition, I didn’t realize that there were preconceived ideas that TV newscasts were parasitic or super-sensationalistic.
From the three articles I read, I would suggest to our client that credibility is the what his operation should seek and maintain. Ratings seem to be what every operation is trying to obtain. I strongly feel that there is a fine line between obtaining ratings and maintaining integrity. I know it is possible for both to be accomplished. However, it must be done with extreme caution and tact.
BIBLIOGRAPHY PAGE
Advertising Age, Arbitron Exits Ratings Race, Scott Donaton, Oct.1993

Journalism Quarterly, Corrections Policies in Local Television News: A Survey, Michael E. Cremedas, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Spring 1992), pgs.166-172.

Journalism Quarterly, Mr. Gates Goes Electronic: The What and Why Questions in Local TV News, Mark D. Harmon, Vol. 66, No. 4, pgs. 857-863.

Taking this survey for Fox Television News in Salt Lake City has been a very educational experience. I had never done telephone surveys before this. Interestingly enough there were some surprising as well as expected results.
From class discussion, we have discovered that Fox’s main focus is on Stowell Group III. This group is a massive group and apparently very critical in Fox’s decision-making. This group is family oriented which indicates a conservative nature. Most of the women in this group tend to be homemakers. Members of the group have at least a high school education. The average age of the group is thirty-nine years, while the income averages $35,000. The entire group makes up a whopping thirty-five percent of the total population.
Because of the importance of thi/*rticular group, I would suggest to Fox that they take these statistics and re-evaluate them. Perhaps a different approach could be taken in targeting this audience.
First of all, I would like to report the result of how marital status relates to importance of anchors/reporters. Of the five-hundred ninety-nine people who answered these questions, seventy-five percent of them were married. Of those /*ied people, a whopping seventy-seven percent said that anchors/reporters were more important, even more important, or very important.
Of the twenty-five percent singles, over seventy-five percent of the them said that anchors/reporters were more important, even more important, or very important.

Now I would like to report on the results of how marital status relates to how they rate KSTU-Fox. Four-Hundred forty-six people answered this question. Of that number, seventy-seven percent were married. Now of that married group here is how they rated KSTU: Twelve-percent said they are “way below average;” Thirteen-percent said they are “below average;” A big forty-percent said that they are “average;” An admirable twenty-six percent said that Fox was “above average;” and finally, nine-percent said that they were “way above average.”
Now let’s compare these statistics to the singles group: A tiny three-percent said that Fox was “way below average;” A significant twenty-one percent said they were “below average;” a very big thirty-six percent said they were “average.” Twenty-eight percent said that they were “above average;” and twelve-percent of the singles said that Fox was “way above average.”
It interesting to note that in comparison, forty-percent of the singles rate KSTU at least above average while a close thirty-five percent of the marrieds rate KSTU at least above average.
In relation to the targeting of Stowell Group III, I believe Fox should take a second look at these statistics that seemingly have no significance at all. One could argue that more marrieds were interviewed so it skews the data, but the bottom line is that there are lots of marrieds out there in Utah who must me considered and not discounted for their significance. I strongly recommend to Fox that marrieds certainly make up a large part of their target audience. I know that Rupert Murdock seems to have a certain philosophy that is uncompromising. However, I think Mr. Murdock should realize that the Utah Market is slightly different than any other markets. Perhaps Utah could be referred to as “drastically” different than most other markets of its size.
My girlfriend is a committed viewer of “90210,” “Melrose Place,” and “Models, Inc.” She suggests that in order for Fox to get her to watch the news, it should be sandwiched in between “90210,” and “Models, Inc.,” at 8 p.m. Now that may seem a bit awkward putting it right in the middle of primetime, but if Fox is so “hip,” what’s the problem? Their news at 8 p.m. could become the “hip” thing to watch that night and other nights.
Concerning the format of Fox News, I must commend the “localness” of the news. I really like the literal “in-depth” news approach.
To those at KSTU-Fox, I commend your excellent effort in a very tough, and extremely traditional market. I feel that time will change your image–even in Utah. I wish you much success. In the meantime, I’ll stay tuned for the improvements yet to come.