Abundance Of Local Casts Pushes KC Fox 4 to No. 2

And the hits just keep coming for WDAF

According to data from the February ratings “sweep,” Fox 4 has moved into second place among local TV stations when doing the one thing that defines local TV stations: the news, reports Aaron Barnhart in a story for The Kansas City Star.

Already the market leader by tonnage, Fox 4 added a 9 a.m. newscast March 28 and, starting this week, has extended the 10 p.m. news to a full hour. WDAF is now airing an all-time high 56½ hours per week of news.

To be sure, there’s no more watched newscast in town than KMBC’s 10 p.m. report, and KMBC is the market leader both with total viewers and the target audiences that advertisers pay good money to reach.
But WDAF finished first or second in every time period where it competed. This, according to just-released Nielsen data about the viewing habits of Kansas City’s 25- to 54-year-olds, the key demographic for local news.

For these viewers, Fox 4 was working for them, so to speak, in mornings, at noon, 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. in February. It led its competitors at these hours, sometimes by wide margins.

On-air, relatively little has changed at WDAF compared with, say, KCTV. The CBS affiliate had been a solid second for most of a decade, but a change of direction — less emphasis on Katie Horner and “Live! Late-breaking!” — has coincided with a change in momentum.

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