The November sweeps are over, and the winner of the local late-news ratings war is well, it depends on who's doing the counting.
KSL-Channel 5 issued a news release claiming a victory at 10 p.m. On the other hand, KUTV-Channel 2 claims a photo finish and is awaiting clarification when more complete numbers are released next week.
What's not in dispute is that based on full-day ratings, the No. 1 news station in town is Channel 2. KUTV won clear victories in the morning and at 5 p.m., and a narrow victory at 6 p.m.
KSL won a narrow victory at noon and trailed in other time slots except for the late news, where Channel 5 is claiming a 10.6 rating to a 10.1 for Channel 2 at 10 p.m.
Channel 2, on the other hand, reports the Monday-Friday numbers in a virtual tie a 10.3 rating and 19 share for KUTV to a 10.3/18 for KSL.
A rating point represents 1 percent of the 944,060 that A.C. Nielsen estimates are in the Salt Lake television market. A share point equals 1 percent of the homes where someone is watching TV at a particular time.
Each station excluded a night during the November sweeps, which began Oct. 27 and ended Nov. 24: KUTV excluded election night (Nov. 2); KSL excluded Nov. 24.
The late-news winner won't be decided until the live-plus-seven ratings which counts both same-day viewing and DVR playback for the week after a show is broadcast.
Preliminary numbers show KSTU-Channel 13's p.m. news in third place, with about a 6.0 rating and 10 share.
KTVX-Channel 4 continues to trail at 10 p.m., with about a 4.0/7. And the 9 p.m. newscast that KTVX produced for its sister station, KUWB-Channel 30, barely registered in the ratings. It posted a 0.5 rating and 1 share.
spierce@sltrib.com