BECKLEY, WV (LOOTPRESS) – You often see the commercials of different local television stations advertise that they are number one, and more people watch them over their competitors, but how do you know who is number one? Lootpress did some digging into numbers and found out that there is one solid winner in the market versus the other two.
Television stations look at ratings to determine how their station is doing against their competitors. Â They also use these numbers to see how local shows are doing and get a feel of what people like or don’t like. Â There are a few different reasons why the ratings are important. First off, it is essential for advertisers. An advertiser wants their ad to appear in front of more individuals and, most importantly, in front of their key demographics. The Nielsen ratings provide this sort of insight, and it helps determine the cost of programming. It can also spot trends and whether or not a television show has an audience or whether next to nobody is watching it.
Nielsen is a company that measures how many viewers are watching a program. A Nielsen rating goes by percentage. In regards to a national television show, such as something on NBC, if a program receives a Nielsen rating of 15, it means that 15 percent of the public participating in the rating service watched the television show. This means the other 85 percent either watched something else or didn’t watch television at all.
In our local market, WVVA is the dominant number one station in the Beckley, Bluefield, and Oak Hill market by a lot!
Here is a breakdown chart of how well WVVA is doing against WVNS 59 News and WOAY.
TIME | WVVA | WVNS 59 News | WOAY |
M-F 5-5:30 am | 2,532 | 2,088 | 501 |
M-F 6-7 am | 5,227 | 3,509 | 1,056 |
M-F 12-12:30 pm | 7,504 | 6,695 | 1,771 |
M-F 5-5:30 pm | 12,649 | 6,248 | 1,672 |
M-F 6-6:30 pm | 23,697 | 10,694 | 3,816 |
M-F 6:30-7 pm | 21,766 | 8,288 | 5,853 |
M-F 11-11:30 pm | 7,311 | 2,931 | 1,208 |
S/S 6-6:30 pm | 17,875 | 8,868 | 3,646 |
S/S 11-11:30 pm | 9,985 | 4,332 | 1,367 |
CW | FOX | ||
M-F 10-10:30 pm | 4,367 | 3,147 |
The data above is from Nielsen and for the month of January 2021, for adults 18+ watching local news.
As you can see from the data above, more people trust and watch WVVA News than WVNS 59 News or WOAY (by a lot).
The most watched newscast is Monday through Friday from 6-6:30 pm.  WVVA scores 23,697 viewers, with WVNS 59 News in far behind second place at 10,694 viewers, versus WOAY in dead last with less than 4,000 viewers.
The next time someone tells you that their station is number one, ask to see the data.