News viewers still favoring KHON-2

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor

KHON-2, the Fox affiliate, still is the news leader among viewers but KHNL-8, the NBC station, has become a key player in the race for second place.

"It's a great (ratings) book for us; we jumped up from last May at 6 and 10 o'clock," said Jim McCoy, KHON news director, of the latest Nielsen TV ratings figures. "I don't know what's happening, but we've got a big lead at 6 p.m. and Channel 4 (KITV-ABC) and Channel 9 (KGMB-CBS) both are down, with Channel 8 on their heels."

"We've become a player," said John Fink, KHNL general manager. Fink predicts KHNL, the lone station among the four network affiliates that still is not on "clock time" (TV jargon for delivering programming at the announced time rather than padding the breaks with extra advertisements), will be a solid No. 2 in the November sweeps. KHNL traditionally begins its news 8 to 10 minutes after 10 p.m. because it inserts extra commercials between 6:30 and 10 p.m. programming. Part of the gain Fink expects could be because of viewers who check out the top news stories on other channels, then switch over to see how the same stories are handled on KHNL, or those who have their dials at KHNL after viewing the lead-in NBC shows.

McCoy confirmed that this is happening: "We've completed our main stories by the time KHNL is starting its news at 10:10; we lose a lot of viewers to them."

Fink attributes KHON's continuing news dominance in part to the vagaries of those who fill out Nielsen "diaries" — reports on their viewing habits. KHON, led by anchor Joe Moore, tends to draw older viewers, particularly in the 55-plus category, he said. "In a diary market such as ours, older viewers tend to fill out the diaries more reliably than younger people, and thus traditionally the incumbent leader is difficult to knock off for years," Fink said.

KITV took a beating in this ratings period, losing a rating point — one percent of the viewing audience — from the February sweeps at 10 p.m and two points at 6 p.m. KGMB also dipped, two points from February at 6 p.m. and one at 10 p.m.

KHNL tied KGMB at 10 p.m. this year and was a rating point behind KITV at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. But despite its popular NBC programming, it lost a rating point in prime time, compared to February and May.

KHON led morning and weekend news; KITV's 5 o'clock news was No. 1.