It is widely accepted in the television news industry that stability is the key to success of early morning news programs.
That is frequently validated in Western New York, where WGRZ-TV’s (Channel 2) “Daybreak” has been the news leader with co-anchor Melissa Holmes scheduled to celebrate a decade on the program in January with only two co-anchors, the retired John Beard and Pete Gallivan.
Pete Gallivan
If you combine the three time periods during the just-concluded May sweeps, from 4:30 to 7 a.m. weekdays, WGRZ and WIVB-TV are in a virtual tie in the number of household ratings points.
WGRZ has a combined 8.2 points, while WIVB has a combined 8.1 points in the three time periods.
(A rating point in Buffalo now represents 6,375 homes, up from 5,285 households. The number went up because Nielsen now includes broadband-only homes.)
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But a closer look shows the strength of “Daybreak” in the most viewed early morning newscast of 6 to 7 a.m. weekdays. It was the leader once again over WIVB-TV’s “Wake Up!” in what was Channel 4 co-anchor Melanie Orlins’ last sweeps rodeo.
At 6 a.m., “Daybreak” averaged a 4.7 household rating to the combined 3.9 rating for “Wake Up!” on WIVB and sister station WNLO-TV. “Daybreak” almost had a 2-1 advantage in the key age 25-54 demographic.
“Wake Up!” won at 4:30 a.m. and 5 to 6 a.m., when viewership is much lower and can be partially due to what channel people were last watching the previous day when they turned the set off.
At 4:30 a.m., “Wake Up!” had a 1.7-1.2 household lead and the station tied in the key 25-54 demographic. At 5 a.m., “Wake Up!” had 2.5-2.3 household edge, but “Daybreak” was a narrow demographic leader.
Two days after the sweeps ended, Orlins announced she is leaving Channel 4 after a five-year run, which is a decent length by WIVB’s morning anchor standards. Orlins hasn’t announced where she is headed but she is from the South and the speculation is that could be her next destination.
Considering that anchor consistency never has been a strength of “Wake Up!”, it is doing very well.
When Jordan Williams left as Orlins’ co-anchor in June of 2018, he had been teamed with four co-anchors in five years – Orlins, Brittni Smallwood, Teresa Weakley and Diana Fairbanks.
Weakley left for a Michigan station in September 2016 and Smallwood filled in for 11 months before Orlins was hired in late July of 2017. Generally, stations prefer to keep their morning teams together for a long period of time because viewers often view them like family.
Orlins has worked with three co-anchors – Williams, Dave Greber and Kelsey Anderson – in her five years here.
By comparison, Gallivan had been a "Daybreak" co-anchor for 10 years alongside first Maryalice Demler and later Jodi Johnston before John Beard replaced him in 2009.
Gallivan, who left the station for a job in state government in 2013 only to return months later, got the job back when Beard retired in 2018.
WGRZ’s 6 a.m. success was in contrast with WIVB’s household success in almost all other news time slots during the sweeps.
The sweeps periods are less important than they have been in the past, as evidenced by the fact that local anchors take some days off during them now. But they still are a reliable gauge of what newscasts Western New Yorkers are watching and advertisers want to buy.
WIVB was the household winner at noon (over only WKBW-TV), 4 p.m. (over WGRZ’s “Most Buffalo”), 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 10 p.m. (over WUTV’s newscast) and 11 p.m.
WGRZ won the household competition at 6 p.m. by a tenth of a point and also won in the key age 25-54 demographic with “Most Buffalo” and at 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
WKBW was a deep third in household ratings in all time slots that it competed with the other two stations. It was most competitive at 6 p.m. with Jeff Russo and the departing Ashley Rowe anchoring. WKBW was also close to second-place WIVB in the 25-54 demographic at 6 a.m.
WKBW had a decisive win at 7 p.m. over the new hourlong Channel 4 newscast anchored by Greber and Jordan Norkus on sister station WNLO. The WKBW newscast anchored by Hannah Buehler had a 2.5 household rating, with the WNLO newscast earning a 0.3 and getting an even lower 0.1 rating in the 25-54 demographic.
WNLO’s wasn’t the only relatively new local newscast to be largely ignored by viewers. At 10 p.m., Channel 4’s long-running newscast on WNLO had a 2.9 rating to an 0.6 for WUTV’s relatively new newscast anchored from Syracuse.
In other things to note, overall household viewing on all three stations was down by about 15% at 6 p.m. from a year ago despite a heavy news cycle that included the coverage of the racially motivated mass shooting at Tops.
The combined ratings on all three stations at 11 p.m. also were lower than they were in 2021 but only by about 6%.
