Local Newscast Viewership Soars During L-A Wildfires

Over one million more residents in the Los Angeles area tuned into local newscasts on broadcast TV stations last week than the previous week as wildfires raged across Southern California, according to data from ratings measurement service Nielsen. Viewership of local evening newscasts soared across all seven news-producing broadcast television stations in Los Angeles compared to last month’s rating sweeps period.

Based on data provided to the National Association of Broadcasters, between December 5th and 7th nearly six million Los Angeles residents watched a local newscast between 5-7 a.m., 5-6:30 p.m. or 11-11:30 p.m. That was up 23.1% from the Tuesday to Thursday of the previous week, when 4.8 million viewers watched local newscasts in the same dayparts.

Nielsen also found that viewership of local morning news programs (5-7 a.m.) across seven Los Angeles TV stations was up 24% among adults 25-54 from the November sweeps period, and was up 63% during the evening news time period (5-6:30 p.m.). Viewership during the late news time period (11-11:30 p.m.) was up 2% from November sweeps. The stations measured were ABC-owned KABC, CBS’s KCBS, Fox’s KTTV, Tribune’s KTLA, NBC’s KNBC, Telemundo’s KVEA and Univision’s KMEX.

“The Nielsen ratings confirm once again the invaluable ‘first informer’ role of local broadcasting in times of crisis,” said NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith. “As we saw earlier this year during Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and in the Sonoma County wildfire in Northern California, local radio and TV becomes a trusted source of lifesaving information in an emergency. We salute California’s broadcasters for their fire coverage and their commitment to keeping local citizens out of harm’s way.”