Strong network lineup boosts KCBS in latest sweeps.

The November sweeps period has given KCBS (Channel 2) something to be thankful for.

Long a laggard in local news programming, the station was primed to register better overall audience gains than any of its English-language competitors in November, according to Nielsen Media Research ratings data through 26 days of the 28-day sweeps period.

The improvement, propelled in part by CBS' strong primetime network lineup, was seen especially during the 6 p.m. newscast, where KCBS had a 2.6 rating, compared with a 2 rating last November and an anemic 1.4 in May of this year. (Each rating point is equal to 54,000 homes.)

KCBS also had more improvement than its English-language competitors in the weekday 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. slots. And while its gains were minimal at 11 p.m., on a percentage basis KCBS did better than KABC (Channel 7) and KNBC (Channel 4).

That's the good news.

The bad news is that KCBS is still on the bottom looking up in virtually every news time slot compared with KNBC and KABC. Despite its gains, KCBS has less than half the viewers of top-rated KABC at 6 p.m. and just 57 percent of KNBC's 11 p.m. viewership.

Nevertheless, the results come less than a year after KCBS and KCAL (Channel 9), both owned by Viacom Inc., joined their news operations--and that has local news executives watching closely.

"The duopoly formed in earnest in January and I think we've hit our stride," said Nancy Bauer Gonzales, vice president and news director for both stations. "Having two stations has allowed us to put more resources on large stories."

Primelime dividends

Still, she acknowledged that no single factor was more important during sweeps than the network's strong primetime lineup.

CBS was poised last week to end the sweeps period as the most watched network. Shows like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Without a Trace" and "Joan of Arcadia" have lifted it to the top spot in a year that's seen overall network audience continue to shrink.

"Primetime being up and strong is the No. 1 goal for any station," Bauer Gonzales said. "It brings eyeballs to the station."

Paula Madison, vice president and general manager of KNBC, noted that while KCBS gained, it remains far below KNBC in overall viewership.

"Whichever network has a strong primetime, there is a usually a halo effect for the local stations' other day parts," she said. "Percentage-wise you are seeing some movement, but the numbers are still pretty low."

Still, Christi Cicerelli, vice president and director of local broadcast for media buyer Horizon Media Inc., said ratings gains would give KCBS more leverage in setting advertising rates for the beginning of the year.

"(KCBS) is probably very happy," Cicerelli said. "A 0.5 rating gain would give them an increase in their unit cost."

November was a news-intense month, with the California wildfires, the swearing in of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the transportation and supermarket work stoppages, and the arrest of pop singer Michael Jackson on child molestation charges. Because of that, almost all the English-language stations picked up audience during early evening newscasts compared with the year-earlier period.

"It was one of the heaviest news cycles I've seen in a long time. It was almost constant," Madison said. "People were hungry for news, local news. We saw increased news viewing across the board at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m."

KNBC saw modest gains from a year ago in most of its news slots, but that was a big improvement over the May period in which it lost audience. "We saw a significant decline that was troubling to us (in May) but now it is trending the other way," Madison said.

In the 6 p.m. time slot, KNBC's November sweeps rankings rose to 5.4 from 4.8 in the like year-ago period, while KABC's rose to 6.5 from 5.9.

Besides KCBS, the biggest ratings winner was Univision Communications Inc.'s KMEX (Channel 34), long the dominant local player in Spanish-language television. KMEX's 6 p.m. newscast earned a 4.9 rating, up from a 3.5 a year ago. At 11 p.m., the station had a 4.0 rating, up from a 3.1 for November 2002. KMEX was the only local station to show significant growth during an 11 p.m. newscast.

"We're right in the pack with the English stations," said Patricia Ramos, communications manager for KMEX. "In primetime, with the exception of KCBS, we're the only local station that's up for the year.