WPVI regained victory at 11 p.m. in the May sweeps with a 12.1 rating/21 share of the audience. WCAU was runner-up with an 11.2 rating/19 share.

By LAURA NACHMAN
Courier Times

WPVI regained victory at 11 p.m. in the May sweeps with a 12.1 rating/21 share of the audience. WCAU was runner-up with an 11.2 rating/19 share.

The real numbers to look at are the lead-ins at 10:45 p.m. While the strong NBC network lineup delivered a 15.5 rating for WCAU, it lost over four rating points for the news.

On the other hand, the awful ABC network lineup had only a 9.9 lead-in, but WPVI gained viewers at 11 p.m. KYW, which was once considered one of the "big three" stations, was third with 5.6 rating/10 share, which wasn't much higher than the 4.9 rating/7share for WTXF.

WPHL trailed with a 2.4 rating/3 share.

CN8 should be renamed CN-eighth, as it only has a fraction of viewers as the other stations, with a 0.39 rating. Each rating point is equal to 28,010 households. In other ratings notes, WPVI continues to lead in the morning with a 7.0 rating/25 share.

For the second straight ratings period, WTXF's "Good Day Philadelphia" beat "The Early Show" on KYW - goodbye and good riddance, Bryant.

However, Philly loves "Good Morning America" as it won big time with an 8.1 rating/23 share to a 5.3 rating/15 share for the No. 1 morning show nationwide, "The Today Show." WCAU's magazine show "10" has better numbers than a year ago, and no matter what you think of the show, once you hear the snappy theme, you'll be humming it the rest of the day.

"The View" is starting to put "The Price is Right" in its rear view mirror, as it increased its lead at 11 a.m. The only bright spot of the day for KYW is the noon news, which gets a 4.7 rating/15 share of the audience, but it is still a distant second to WPVI.

"Oprah's" slide continued on WPVI as its ratings are down from a year ago.

At 5 p.m., things got ugly for KYW as the news had a 2.4 rating/5 share, down a point from a year ago when Dawn Stensland was on the station. And as usual, WPVI's 6 p.m. news with Jim Gardner dominated with a 14.1 rating/26 share.

NEW STARTS

WPHL news anchor Toni Yates married Philadelphia fireman Chuck Harvey at her home in Voorhees, N.J., on Saturday. The reason why Yates is on the air this week is she'll go on her honeymoon in the summer. This is the second marriage for Yates, who was married to CN8 news anchor Arthur Fennell and has two daughters...KYW will try to improve with new executive producer at 11 p.m., Casey Clark. He arrives from Columbus, Ohio...How many people remember that Brian Williams, who was just named the successor to Tom Brokaw on "The NBC Nightly News" in 2004, was a reporter on WCAU from 1986-1987? He joins Matt Lauer, who also had a "cup of coffee" on Channel 10 in the '80s on the ex-WCAU all-star team. And where have you gone Dennis Woltering?

Reach Laura Nachman at [email protected].

Thursday, May 30, 2002