The Zimmerman Heavy July Book in O-Town

Let me fill you in on a little secret. The July ratings book means absolutely nothing. It's a throw away book that neither TV stations nor advertisers really care about.  

But, with the George Zimmerman trial going on in Orlando during the book, we thought it would be interesting looking at the ratings for that market. 

With all Zimmerman all the time as basically the only thing that was covered in July, WFTV was the clear ratings winner. 

The station was No. 1 spot at 5 p.m. which was a race they did not win in the last book. The ABC affiliate continued their winning ways at 6 a.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.

 Fox station WOFL-Channel 35 was the dominant No. 1 in the 10 p.m. news race. 

WESH offered the favorite newscast at 4 p.m., easily topping WFTV which just started up a 4PM newscast. 

At 6 p.m. weekdays, WFTV topped the demos. The station averaged nearly 31,000 viewers to WESH's 26,900, WOFL's 24,800 and WKMG's 17,400.

The tightest race was 11 p.m. Monday-Friday. WFTV averaged 25,900 viewers and edged WESH with 25,700. WKMG drew 21,600 and WOFL pulled in 15,200.

When the race is figured on Monday-Sunday, WFTV had 26,600 viewers and a bigger lead over WESH (24,000) and WKMG (20,900). 

The 5 p.m. time slot has been the most contested in recent months. WESH won the hour in May. In June, WOFL pulled to the front at 5 p.m., but WFTV was the leader at 5:30. In a tight July race, WFTV was on top with with 21,700 viewers to WOFL's 21,000, WESH's 19,900 and WKMG's 9,900.

The race was not tight at 10 p.m. Monday-Sunday. Fox-owned WOFL averaged 21,400 viewers. The WESH news on sister station WKCF-Channel 18 had 7,900 viewers, and the WFTV news on sister station WRDQ-Channel 27 had 7,800.

In households, WFTV had a bigger lead in many time slots. At 6 p.m., for instance, WFTV averaged 113,900 homes to WESH's 72,100, WOFL's 37,700 and WKMG's 36,700. But advertisers are most interested in a station's reach with the 25-to-54 age group.

H/T Orlando Sentinel