This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
KSL-Ch. 5 kicked off the May sweeps on Thursday night in a most unusual way. After a few minutes of headlines, weather and sports, the station essentially abandoned its late newscast in favor of a commercial-free public service campaign to prevent suicide.A laudable effort, to be sure. One worthy of praise and thanks.In terms of the ratings, KSL's 10 p.m. newscast was not competitive with local ratings leader KUTV. Channel 2 drew an 11.2 rating/23 share for its late newscast, more than doubling Channel 5's 5.5/11.KSTU-Ch. 13 matched that 5.5./11 at 9 p.m.; KTVX-Ch. 4 trailed with a 3.6/8 at 10 p.m.(A rating point represents 1 percent of the 917,370 TV-equipped homes Nielsen estimates are in the Salt Lake Television market; a share point equals 1 percent of the homes where television is actually being watched at a given time.)That's one day down and 27 to go in the May sweeps. Stay tuned ...