Word around the WCCO-TV newsroom is that great umbrage was taken over KARE11 overstating its status as the "the most watched" station at 10 p.m.
An asterisk with a disclaimer that this only applied to the 18- to 49-year-old demographic has been added to KARE's rooftop promo, according to Mike Caputa, news director at WCCO, who sounded not at all perturbed Monday.
"Last couple of years we've being doing a [promo] 'Minnesota's most-watched station,' " said Caputa. "KARE in the last three [to] four weeks came out with a promo that they were the most-watched 10 p.m. newscast in the state — and the original one said, 'in the country.' They had to change that because Nielsen told them that was not true. They put on the bottom an asterisk, they're using only 18 to 49."
A staffer at the ratings powerhouse Nielsen declined to comment. In other words: Nielsen is going to let the local stations duke it out here.
Nobody at KARE11 returned my call to explain the asterisk added to the TV spot where Julie Nelson, Eric Perkins, Belinda Jensen and others are standing on a rooftop in Minneapolis touting KARE11's ratings dominance. WCCOers are always amused by Golden Valley-based KARE11 setting commercials in downtown Minneapolis. I have seen the commercial but don't have a TV gigantic enough to have made the asterisk more prominent.
My chat with Caputa was a continuation of a conversation where I told him I never understand what TV stations are doing with the numbers and have concluded they can make figures do whatever they like. So I again asked: Which station is the most watched?
"We are the most watched in total viewers in every newscast we produce," Caputa told me. "That means it doesn't matter, 2-year-old until you're dead." At 5, 6 and 10 p.m. WCCO has more eyeballs.
"I think that's even true for all the morning shows," he said. REALLY? I'd heard there'd been a dip since the Great Morning News Shuffle of 2013. "Yes," said Caputa. "If we don't ever win a total show it's in the mornings, that's the one spot where that's happening."