WAKA Excited About Letterman

Steven Costanzo at CBS sent out an email to affiliates today (July 16, 2009) touting "LETTERMAN BEATS "THE TONIGHT SHOW" BY LARGEST MARGIN SINCE 2000; GAP NARROWS IN ADULTS 18-49". WAKA was quick to refire it out to everyone else...here's the email:

"Late Show with David Letterman" Also Places First in Adults 25-54 (Tie) and Narrows the Adult 18-49 Gap to Just -0.3 of a Rating Point

Last Night's Broadcast, Featuring Sir Paul McCartney, Tops "The Tonight Show" in the Metered Markets By Its Largest Margin Since October

"Late Show" Gets 5 Emmy Nominations This Morning

CBS's LATE SHOW beat "The Tonight Show" by its largest margin in viewers since 2000, placed first in adults 25-54 (tie) and narrowed the margin in adults 18-49 opposite Conan O'Brien to just -0.3 of a rating point, according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for the week ending July 10.

LATE SHOW beat "The Tonight Show" in households (2.6/07 vs. 2.0/05, +30%) and viewers (3.68m vs. 2.82m, +30%). It was LATE SHOW's largest margin of victory against an all first-run week of "Tonight Show" broadcasts in both households and viewers since the week ending Feb. 25, 2000 (the week David Letterman returned from heart surgery). LATE SHOW has also closed the gap with "The Tonight Show" in adults 25-54 (1.2/05) to a tie, CBS's closest competitive position since the week ending Dec. 2, 2005 (the week Oprah Winfrey appeared).

In adults 18-49 (0.8/04 vs. 1.1/05), LATE SHOW continued to cut "The Tonight Show's"' lead: -1.4 in Conan O'Brien's premiere week, -0.6 in the week ending June 12, -0.5 in the week ending June 19 and -0.3 in the week ending July 10. Among adults 18-34 (0.5/02 vs. 1.1/05), LATE SHOW has cut "The Tonight Show's" lead from -1.6 in Conan O'Brien's premiere week to -0.6 in the week ending July 10.

Last night's broadcast, featuring Sir Paul McCartney, topped "The Tonight Show" by its largest margin since Oct. 16, 2008 (Sen. John McCain's appearance).

This morning, LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN was nominated for five Emmy Awards including "Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series."


Couple things to point out:
1) As a local advertiser this means nothing without local numbers to show me what Dave is doing on WAKA compared to Conan on WSFA.
2) Conan killed Dave in the 18-49 category but did lose in total viewers...so basically, less people watch Conan, but those that do watch are almost double the amount of younger viewers that advertisers are looking for.
3) Nightline on ABC actually beat both programs in total viewers for July 6-10.

Derek Steyer - Kristie Welch Wedding

Congratulations to WSFA Sports Anchor/Reporter Derek Steyer and WSFA producer (former WAKA reporter/anchor) Kristie Welch upon their marriage today.

Protest at ABC 32 WNCF

Check out this news article from WSFA.com:
http://www.wsfa.com/Global/story.asp?S=10591776

This link was supplied by a reader. During Wednesday nights Obama program on ABC, outside of our local ABC 32 on Harrison Road were Members of the Montgomery and Wetumpka Tea Parties there to protest the biased coverage.

The reader who supplied the link apparently did not agree with their protest calling the protesters "idiots" and WSFA "lowlifes" for running the story. My opinion on this is firm, but not neccesary in this post, but I would like to comment on the news part of this story rather than the subject matter.

Protest happen. They are news. They should be covered and reported on rather they are right or wrong in your opinion. Congratulations WSFA for providing unbiased coverage. Keep up the good work.

WAKA Wikipedia Page Vandalized

Originally I posted the following on 6/23/2009:

UNCONFIRMED AS OF 6/23/2009:

Monica Allen, former week night anchor at WAKA back as weekend anchor.

Glenn Halbrooks out?

Steffanie Hicks to WPMI.

Janet Yates to be brought in to anchor 12, 5, 6, 9, and 10?

Seems all far fetched at this point...please confirm this news or tell me to delete this if it is incorrect!

Information found at WAKA's wikipedia page that was last updated on June 14. Not always the most trust worthy source. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAKA


After speaking with a WAKA representative today, it was clarified that WAKA does not plan to make any anchor changes and that there are currently no openings at this time. The representative went further to say that the hope right now is that all the current anchors would stay for a long time.

Side note...I personally corrected the wikipedia page for WAKA so it should read correctly for at least a moment.

One Million Watts

WAKA sent out the flyer show on the left today. I am sure the next email is on the way which tells us about how the power of UHF versus a VHF station is different. WAKA is right now broadcasting on channel 42 which is UHF along with WBMM, WCOV and WNCF that they noted. WSFA is broadcasting in VHF.

This explanation is given in Wikipedia:
The point to point transmission and reception of TV and radio signals is affected by many variables. Atmospheric moisture, solar wind, physical obstructions such as mountains and buildings, and time of day will all have an effect on the signal transmission and degradation of signal reception. All radio waves are partially absorbed by atmospheric moisture. Atmospheric absorption reduces, or attenuates, the strength of radio signals over long distances. The effects of attenuation degradation increases when switching from VHF TV signals to UHF TV signals. UHF TV signals are generally more degraded by moisture than lower bands such as VHF TV signals. The layer of the Earth's atmosphere called the ionosphere is filled with charged particles that can reflect radio waves. The reflection of radio waves can be helpful in transmitting a VHF TV signal over long distances as the wave repeatedly bounces from the sky to the ground, where by VHF TV signals benefit and the UHF TV signals do not benefit from this effect of reflection. UHF transmission and reception will be enhanced or degraded by tropospheric ducting as the atmosphere warms and cools throughout the day. The main advantage of UHF transmission is the physically short wave that is produced by the high frequency. The size of transmission and reception antennas, is related to the size of the radio wave. The UHF antenna is stubby and short. Smaller and less conspicuous antennas can be used with higher frequency bands. The major disadvantage of UHF is its limited broadcast range and reception, often referred to as line-of-sight between the TV station's transmission antenna and customer's reception antenna, as opposed to VHF's very long broadcast range and reception which is less restricted by line-of-sight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_high_frequency

WAKA's Coverage Map:

WSFA's Coverage Map:


Basically they have the same coverage spread based on where their towers are. It just takes more power to broadcast UHF 42 than it does VHF 12 the same amount of distance.

WVAS Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Click on the following the link to read the story from the Sunday, June 21 edition of the Montgomery Advertiser.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20090621/NEWS01/906210312/1007/rss02

The Babies Made Me Do It

I have received many emails and seen comments posted on here recently asking why I haven't been posting more information on the blog...and my answer is the babies made me do it. I'm going to pull back the curtain a little more than I originally wanted to on this blog now.

I have been married for about 7 years now and we have been wanting to be parents for about 6 of those years. After several years we were finally expecting with a due date in April 2009. The last week of January my wife entered into pre-term labor. For those without children, babies are supposed to brew for about 40 weeks. At this time we were just finishing 28 weeks...way too early for them to come out. My wife was put on full bed rest at the hospital. 3 weeks later we had our babies at 31 weeks, 9 weeks premature...notice I said babies. We had twins, a boy and a girl. 9 weeks is way to early so they were immediately entered into the NICU at Baptist East where they remained for 6 weeks. When we took them home, it marked the end of a marathon of 9 straight weeks of being at Baptist East, every day. Love them at Baptist East, but it was a great feeling watching that hospital get smaller in my rear view mirror with our brand new babies in the back seat.

All this to say my priorities have obviously changed. I haven't spent any time looking for stories to post here on the blog. Anything I have posted has basically fallen in my lap...someone has emailed it to me, posted it as a comment or it was so blatantly obvious that something needed to be said about it.

I appreciate that you, the readers of this blog have come to rely on it for updated news and whats going on behind the scenes but at this time I am facing a choice. I can continue to rely on you, the reader to supply information; I can seek help from someone who is like me...worked in the industry and still flirts around in it enough to know what is going on for the most part (many will argue that I don't really know anything I am sure); last option is to shut it down and possibly forward the site to another site like centralalabamatv.blogspot.com.

I would appreciate your comments and feedback as always. Thank you for your continued readership of this blog. The whole thing has truly been a surprise to me as to how many people check this site every day!