When Donald Trump called for a boycott of Megyn Kelly's show on Fox News Channel, the ratings actually went up.

But, there is one local TV news boycott that might actually be working.

Hearst owned WTAE in Pittsburgh just got done with the May book and the ratings were awful.

WTAE dropped significantly in households, which measures popularity, while also losing ground in the demo as well.

Some in Pittsburgh think they know the reason that WTAE fell in the ratings?

The Wendy Bell factor.

Bell was fired in March after 18 years at the station because of her racist posting on Facebook. Many of Bell's fans lit up social media and told the station they were boycotting the station's newscast.

Bell's fans are rejoicing at WTAE's bad book.

But not everyone thinks it was just about Bell.

Personnel changes are just part of the big Nielsen puzzle, Steve Kraycik tells the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Kraycik is a former news director in Seattle and Sacramento.

“As a former news director, certainly we looked at those ratings, that’s your report card, every day... but we also wanted to see a trend,” said Kraycik, now a professor of journalism and director of student television and online operations at Penn State University.

“It is significant,” Kraycik said. “Certainly, the news director and the GM are taking a hard look at where the real reason lies, but I think we just have to be careful that nobody makes a definitive correlation between Wendy Bell and the ratings. That [her firing] could have an effect, but there are a number of things at play.”

WTAE's GM Charles Wolfertz III says that he does not comment on Nielsen ratings.

Of course, I'm sure if WTAE was No.1 in the May book, he might have made an exception.

Just saying....