It was close, but Channel 12 pulled in slightly larger numbers than Channel 4, to take first in the 10 p.m. ratings race, according to Nielsen Media Research numbers.
More attention is usually given to the November ratings period, the four-week "sweeps" period that began Thursday night. But the October ratings are the first measure of the audience since the beginning of the new TV station -- including Jay Leno's 9 p.m. show.
Nielsen numbers show that in the weeknight race, Channel 12 averaged 67,635 southeast Wisconsin households, a 13 percent share of TVs on at the time. Channel 4 had 66,733, also a 13 percent of TVs on at the time, a measure of how close the race was. Channel 58 came in third with 51,402 homes, a 10 percent share; and Channel 6 had 43,286 households, an 8 percent share.
In the 9 p.m. hour, when Leno airs, ABC's programming on Channel 4 led with nearly 68,000 homes, a 12 percent share of TVs on at the time. CBS's programs on Channel 58 averaged more than 60,000 area households, an 11 percent share. Leno had 55,000 households, a 10 percent share on Channel 4, and Channel 6's 9 p.m. news averaged some 46,000 households, an 8 percent share.
Spade wouldn't do it again: David Spade tells People that if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't have made the DirecTV commercial featuring an unsettling clip of his late pal and "Saturday Night Live" co-worker, Chris Farley. While he thinks the spot is "cool," he says "I wouldn't want anyone to get a whiff that I'm trying to get something off Chris."
Madison-born, Marquette grad Farley died in 1997 of drug-related heart failure.
On radio: Rosie O'Donnell resurfaces Monday with a new daily radio show on Sirius/XM satellite radio."Rosie Radio" airs live on weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon on Sirius Channel 102 and XM Channel 155.
- Cincinnati's WAKW-FM looks like this year's first flip to all-Christmas music. The Christian adult contemporary station made the switch Wednesday. Green Bay's WROE-FM flipped this morning. Nothing yet in Milwaukee, but I'll blog it if somebody flips between now and Monday.
- WLDB-FM (93.3) has a radiothon running until 7 tonight, with morning hosts Stan Atkinson and CV hosting into the evening hours in a fundraiser for ABCD (After Break Cancer Diagnosis).
- Speaking of radiothons, West Bend's WBKV-AM (1470)/WBWI-FM (92.5), and Hartford's WTKM-AM (1540)/WTKM-FM (104.9) will host a United Way Radiothon auction on Saturday, Nov. 14, to support programs in Washington County.
- Green Bay radio talker Jerry Bader has been suspended for two weeks by WTAQ-AM for making over-the-top allegations about Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton's decision to drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination for governor on his blog.
On Oprah's list: It's not official, but it looks like Grace Weber, a 2006 graduate of Pius XI High School and now a New York University student, will be named one of eight finalists in Oprah Winfrey's karaoke contest on today's show, which airs at 4 p.m. on Channel 12.
She's heading to Chicago for rehearsals and is due on the competition show Thursday afternoon.
The video that got her in the finals follows below.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
