empire? They form that opinion from what they see on Channel 4. ''What does Wall Street think of the G.E. ''There's a lot of pressure on a corporation's flagship station,'' one station executive said, on condition that his name not be used. The people watching the local news in New York's metropolitan region include the networks' own top executives and leaders on Wall Street and Madison Avenue. That means NBC's Channel 4 is earning top dollar for General Electric, ABC's Channel 7 is performing solidly for Disney, and CBS's Channel 2 is a major disappointment to Westinghouse. Such cash generators are vital to each station's parent network, and the network's owners. News generates as much as half of a station's profit, and the top New York station's profits now exceed $100 million a year. The six stations all compete for high advertising stakes. The three smaller New York stations have no early evening news but compete with newscasts at 10 P.M., where Channel 5, WNYW, the Fox station, is the longtime leader, well ahead of Channel 11, WPIX, a WB affiliate, and Channel 9, WWOR, a UPN affiliate. news finished last among major stations, behind not only the news on Channels 4 and 7, but also ''Full House,' ''Married With Children'' and ''Home Improvement'' on Channels 11, 9 and 5 respectively.Īnd at 11 P.M., when news advertising rates are highest, Channel 2 News finishes behind ''Seinfeld'' reruns and does battle with the Jenny Jones talk show for fifth place. In the February sweeps - one of four months in the year when Nielsen ratings are used to set future advertising rates - Channel 2's 6 P.M. ''The two of us are throwing heavy punches, and nobody else is close.''įurther away than ever in the three main news time periods is Channel 2, WCBS, where management abruptly dismissed seven well-known newscasters last October. ''You've got a championship fight going on here between WNBC and WABC, two network flagship stations really slugging it out,'' Dennis Swanson, the president and general manager of Channel 4, said after giving a staff party Monday night to celebrate the station's strong February sweeps performance. periods, but in the early-evening time slots, Channel 4 is a whisker away, the closest it has been since November 1986. Channel 4 wins at 11 P.M., and Channel 7 still wins the 6 P.M. Having poured money into upgrading equipment and hiring new talent, Channel 4, WNBC, is now challenging the longtime overall leader, Channel 7, WABC, for the news ratings championship. At a time when fewer people are watching broadcast television news, because of cable channels and other diversions, the competition for viewers and the advertising dollars they attract is fiercer than ever. The television news market in New York - the biggest and most lucrative in the nation - has had a year of turmoil, marked by mass dismissals at one station, the re-emergence of two dismissed anchors at a rival station, and a titanic battle for Nielsen ratings between the two leaders. But since Chopper 4 first went up in 1994, it has become an oft-cited symbol of the sometimes zany but intensely serious quest for supremacy among the news divisions of New York's six major commercial television stations. Emblazoned on both sides with NBC's peacock logo and a giant 4, the helicopter has gyroscopically stabilized cameras that let it transmit unwobbly pictures as it glides over news big and small, from the smoldering wreckage of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 last summer to the billowing smoke from One Lincoln Center after Lionel Hampton's halogen lamp set the tower on fire a few weeks back.Ĭhannel 4's helicopter has been copied by its archrival, Channel 7 (which has two), and is just one element in the station's news coverage. Poised in a New Jersey parking lot, ready for duty 24 hours a day, is the mythic superhero of New York City television news, a blue-and-white figure that can leap tall buildings in a single bound, and that swoops toward any emergency and brings cold-eyed reality, if not truth and justice, into every living room.
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