Still Going in Indy
On January 1st, WISH-TV in Indianapolis lost their CBS affiliation and many inside and outside wondered what that meant for the future of the station?
Well it's hard to tell in just one month, but in January, WISH scored was No. 2 in ratings for 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. time slot, according Nielsen Media Research.
While WISH’s 3.8 rating was far behind market leader WTHR, which recorded an 11.1, it was ahead of WXIN (3.6), WRTV (2.7) and WTTV (2.1).
In the 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. slot, WISH came up No. 3 in local TV news. WISH’s 2.2 rating, according to Nielsen, was behind WTHR’s 5.5 and WXIN’s 3.0, but ahead of WRTV’s 1.4 and WTTV’s 0.5.
Interestingly, WISH’s 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. newscast earned a household rating of 1.8, while CBS This Morning earned a 1.3 during that time in this market, according to Nielsen.
WISH now starts its late news at 10 p.m., and with a 2.0 rating, trails WXIN, which scored a 5.4 in that time slot during January.
WISH is clearly hurt by a lack of a network prime-time lead-in show as it ranks No. 5 behind all its competitors during the 11 p.m. news slot. At 11 p.m., WTHR scored a 6.4 rating, WTTV benefitted from strong CBS lead-in programming to score a 3.2, WXIN had a 2.6 and WRTV a 2.5. WISH recorded a 1.7, according to Nielsen.
So while the future of the station is still up in the air, it clearly has hope that it can work.