Channel 3’s late news copes with Leno effect

Did they take it on the chin from The Chin?

Thus far in this season's hot network parlor game -- i.e., Jaywatch -- the dreaded Leno effect in Las Vegas on Channel 3 has yielded results as mixed as the frequent Mirage headliner's lukewarm laugh-athon on NBC.

Industrywide fears proved valid that the vanilla-flavored, anemically-rated "Jay Leno Show" -- the network's 10 p.m. dice roll that dumped scripted dramas for five-day Jay -- would shrink the lead-in audience to local 11 p.m. news, plucking out viewers like feathers from the Peacock's fading plumage. Top-tier NBC affiliates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore, among others, have hemorrhaged thousands of 11 p.m. news viewers since Leno's September bow.

Though incomplete (we're still in midsweeps), here's a local ratings snapshot of the first week of this November sweeps for both prime time and 11 p.m. on weeknights. Measured in total households, they're compared against the same period last year:

Unsurprisingly, Leno sent the 10 p.m. time slot free-falling from third place in 2008 to last among our major affiliates, dragging the entire prime-time lineup (8-11 p.m.) with him to the Nielsen basement. Even Fox-5's 10 p.m. news bests Leno locally, an indignity Channel 3 avoided last year with the network's stronger-rated dramas.

At 11 p.m.: Last year's 4.2 rating on Channel 3 slid to a 3.9 this year, a bigger dip than first-place Channel 8's slight slippage from 6.2 to 6.1, but better than the loss suffered by post-"Ninagate" Channel 13. The Nina-ites tumbled from 3.8 to 3.2, the largest year-to-year drop among locals, even without a Leno-like albatross as a lead-in -- a sad, self-inflicted wound. Fox-5 enjoyed a bump from 1.7 to 2.2, though their numbers had little else to do but head north.

Fairly amazing is that despite Leno's flameout, Channel 3 held onto second place at 11 p.m. from year to year, and was the only station this season to ratchet their ratings upward from their network lead-in.

Granted, it wouldn't require Herculean ratings muscle to improve on Leno's leaden performance. Still, a station drawing more viewers at 11 p.m. than in network prime time -- nearly a full ratings point bounce, from 3.0 to 3.9 -- is a rare reversal of the Nielsen norm. Gauging the more expected dropoff between 10 and 11 p.m., Channel 8 falls from 8.7 to 6.1 and Channel 13 from 4.4 to 3.2 with network lead-ins, while Channel 5, shifting from its hourlong to half-hour news, slips from 3.5 to 2.2. (Fox prime time ends at 10 p.m.)

News-3's numbers are an encouraging foundation on which a station in transition can build. Brand loyalty is evident among the Channel 3 audience in general, and certainly specific to the Jim Snyder/Sue Manteris-anchored broadcast, to which viewers make an actual effort to switch after "CSI: Miami" on CBS or "Dancing with the Stars" on ABC. (The ratings effect of DVRs and TiVo is another topic entirely.)

News headlines more popular than Leno's "Headlines"?

The one really taking it on the chin is The Chin.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.