Blame it on Oprah, Ricki or even Richard Sher. But the most dramatic news locally for the November sweeps ratings period is that WMAR-Channel 2 lost almost one-fourth of the audience for its 5 o'clock news during the last year.
Last November, Nielsen measured the audience for WMAR's early newscast with Stan Stovall and Mary Beth Marsden at 160,000 area homes. This November, the audience is down 22.5 percent to 124,000 homes, although the station still won the ratings race in the 5 p.m.-to-6 p.m. time period.
"I think Oprah's decline in Baltimore and the success of Ricki Lake is one thing that's definitely hurting the newscast," said Melanie Morgan, vice president of the Earle Palmer Brown advertising agency in Bethesda.
"Oprah," the syndicated talk show, airs on WMAR from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and provides the lead-in to the station's early newscast. In the wake of Oprah Winfrey's decision to do a less-sensationalistic kind of show this fall, her audience is down 17 percent in Baltimore.
Meanwhile, "Ricki," Ricki Lake's syndicated talk show that airs opposite WMAR's news from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., is up 61 percent from a year ago. "Ricki" is carried locally on WBFF-Channel 45.
WMAR News Director Jack Cahalan notes the impact of "Oprah" and "Ricki," but says the reasons for the dramatic swing at 5 go beyond the talk shows.
"The important thing to understand about the 5 o'clock is that the entire environment changed in between '94 and '93. You have 'Oprah' taking a rather sizable dip not only here but around the country. And then there's Ricki Lake. She is a huge factor.
"But you also have 'JZ [WZJ-Channel 13] coming on the air in January and going head to head with us with an hour of news," Cahalan said.
WJZ's early news did become more of a factor at 5 p.m. during November. In fact, it gained 20,000 area homes in the last month -- after Richard Sher joined Sally Thorner as co-anchor of the newscast. The gap between WJZ and first-place WMAR is now only 37,000 homes.
"We're very pleased with the continued growth of 'Eyewitness News at Five,' " said Marcellus Alexander, general manager at WJZ.
Everyone in the local industry had some kind of a feeling yesterday about the 5 p.m. time period and ratings.
"We're once again delighted. We feel with 'Ricki,' we have the No. 1 show," said Steve Marks, general manager of WBFF. He based that claim on "Ricki" leading the market in terms of young women viewers, an audience prized by advertisers.
"I'd say by looking at these numbers that it's a time period definitely up for grabs when it comes to news," said WBAL general manager Phil Stolz, who'll try to grab a piece of the news audience by launching a 5 p.m. newscast in September.
Elsewhere on the news front, there was little change. WJZ
remained No. 1 at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. weeknights, with WMAR in second. WBAL is third at 6 p.m. and neck-and-neck with WMAR for runner-up at 11. WBAL wins at noon weekdays.
The station again showing solid growth year-to-year in news is WBFF, which added another 13,000 homes to its hot "News at Ten."
1 Nationally, CBS used savvy "stunt" programming -- like the "Cagney & Lacey" and "Rockford" reunions -- to win the network prime-time battle by two-tenths of a rating point over ABC. NBC and Fox finished third and fourth, respectively. But none of the margins was large enough to make much difference to local stations' news programming at 11 p.m.
Other interesting local races during November included morning and late-night talk shows.
"Late Show With David Letterman" almost doubled its audience this November on WBAL vs. last November on independent station, WNUV-Channel 54. Letterman now beats Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" in Baltimore. But this still is not Letterman's kind of town. The combination of ABC's "Nightline" and the syndicated reality show, "Cops," on WJZ topped Letterman for Baltimore's late-night crown.
In the morning talk wars, "Jenny Jones" used shows featuring teen-age strippers and mothers and daughters who sleep with the same man to beat "Regis and Kathie Lee" for the No. 1 spot
in the hearts of Baltimore viewers.