Hasta La Creative!

Nielsen’s May sweeps period begins in just a few weeks on April 25, kicking off a month when local news directors all over America will think about just one thing: how to juice the ratings that their sales teams will take to market until the next sweeps comes around.

Never mind that advertisers have long accepted artificially enhanced sweeps programming as the “norm” that sets their prices. They are consenting adults, after all, and I’m hardly the first to question the wisdom of this bizarre quarterly ritual. Being “No. 1” is still important for bragging rights and for the bottom line, of course, and even more important for the job security of general managers, news directors and anchors. But a once-generous pie that used to feed every station in the market is now crumbling around the edges, and smart station executives, even while cooking up special series and assorted stunts for May, are starting to experiment with a new recipe.

That’s because they know that the next time any of their kids plan to watch their newscasts is … never. I started my career at WNEW-TV in New York, which began the nightly newscast with the now-much-parodied catchphrase “It’s 10 p.m.: Do you know where your children are?” Well, one place we needn’t bother looking for them is in front of the set when the local news comes on. A Pew Research Center study released last fall reports that just 28% of the under-30 set watches local news regularly, down sharply from 42% in 2006.

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