Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
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92 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 gskentuckiana.org chocolatedreams.org as a competitor, but there's a story about us that no one seems to see or be interested in writing." He tells me of WAVE's 2014 Edward R. Mur- row Award for overall excellence in the region, four new live trucks, a new Inside the Cards sports show, a new anchor who is from Louisville but most recently worked in Miami, Dawne Gee's new cookbook benefting the Dare to Care food bank, a new concert series, a beefed-up digital news team, improved ratings. In fact, he says, if I look at the Rentrak ratings system for No- vember, WAVE wins the 6 p.m., 11 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 5 a.m. I tell him I'm not familiar with Rentrak, that I've only ever heard of Nielsen ratings. He tells me Rentrak is an alternative — bigger sampling size, probably more accurate. But he admits, at least for now, the numbers are worthless. Advertisers use Nielsen. Only Victo- ria, Texas, one of the tiniest news markets in the country, relies on Rentrak data. But Selvaggi's got good Nielsen numbers to share too. Te last four sweeps periods, WAVE's inched upward. "At 6 a.m. (in November), we were tenths of a point out of number one … in the 25-to-54 demo, and the frst in women 25 to 54." When I worked in TV news, ratings had the same appeal as eyeliner — never cared to fddle with it. But because sweeps ties this whole story together, I'm trying to learn — ratings, not eye- liner. I looked at a lot of overnight ratings from November, specifcally on those days I was at WDRB. Some days, the station's morning show was in third one hour, frst the next. Teir 10 p.m. might place last among late night broadcasts one day, second the next. Teir 6 p.m. would strike a win, only to slip to last. At the end of this sweeps period, WLKY was still considered a strong No. 1 in the market, with WDRB at No. 2. I phone Bill Lamb in the days after I speak with Selvaggi. He tells me that WDRB ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in all newscasts for adults in the 18-to-54 demographic, except for the Sunday morning show. Te new 6 p.m. came in second among 25-to-54 year olds, a sur- prise to some at WDRB who thought they might land dead last. Demos are what advertisers pay most attention to, he says, adding, "Here's the thing you need to know about ratings. Any TV station can take a program and they can be num- ber one if they want to narrow the demographic enough. Let's say they want to be number one in left-handed female Capricorns; they can do that." M y personal home entertainment system is primitive — 200-pound tube tele- vision, antenna with foil on its ends and a digital converter box. I don't have cable or DVR. I want to watch a lot of TV news for this story, so I have my editor record six days worth of news during November sweeps — all four sta- tions, just the 6 p.m. and late news. (I try to fip through the news when time permits at home as well, but my antenna-converter-box combo proves irritable. Some days WAVE disappears, other days WLKY does.) News people are known to watch their craft like no rational person. Tey fip around in-