Here’s your May sweeps update:
Sentinel TV critic Hal Boedeker slams WKMG-Local 6 for its sweeps kickoff: a staged home burglary on Thursday’s 11 p.m. news. Boedeker wrote in his blog, "This tired stunt was a shameless bid to inject drama into the newscast" and "I’m expecting better from WKMG. Viewers are, too, after the Guetzloe Files." Read the full post here. …
WKMG was the only one of the local stations to have its main weeknight anchor team working the 11 p.m. shift Sunday night. …
According to the electronic program guide on my TV, WOFL-Fox 35 ditched the second half-hour of its Friday 10 p.m. news to air a "Does it Work?" special. Stations do this so they can drop low-rated quarter or half hours from their sweeps ratings average. I would have thought WOFL’s news numbers would be sky high thanks to American Idol. Not sure why the station needs to "code out" part of their newscasts now. ….
WFTV’s sweeps offering Monday night is anchor/reporter Chris Egert’s look at dirty supermarkets. …
While WOFL and WKMG debuted new sets, graphics and music to start sweeps, WESH got into the makeover act and redid its anchor intros. Click the links to view video and frame grabs showing the changes at WKMG , and the changes at WOFL, and the new anchor intro at WESH.