SFLTV - South Florida TV blog

An article in the Miami Herald explains what the local news outlets are doing to prepare for this hurricane season. WTVJ and WSVN have installed fuel tanks on-site for employees to re-fuel when needed so they can get to work, and for news vechicles.

According to the Herald 7 has spent over $1 million dollars on hurricane preparedness this year and have built a special broadcast transmission center on the 2nd floor in case the studios downstairs got flooded.

WTVJ are installing shutters on top of their hurricane resistant windows and WPLG has purchased a state-of-the-art weather computer programs. The Herald mentions WTJV’s “Weather Plus Hurricane Hummer” which is actually from last year, not this on.

7 has made arrangements to air it’s hurricane programming on Cox radio stations across South Florida, WTVJ has an agreenment with Beasley Broadcast Group.

The newspaper outlets are also putting gas tanks on site, and some are arranging with local gas stations who have generators to give them fuel when needed.

Miami Herald
Last year’s hurricanes taught news a lesson

Someone emailed to say The Tube TV is now broadcasting on WB’s second subchannel, 39.2. The Tube is a music network much like MTV was in the old days playing music videos all the time. WFLX - FOX29 in Palm Beach County also broadcasts The Tube on their subchannel.

Tube TV Network site

Tom jicha from Sun Sentinel has a nice summary of the May sweeps ratings. WSVN almost bumped WLTV - Univision from the spot for #1 station but it didnt happen so 7 is number one among English language stations sign-on to sign-off. WSVN, WPLG and WFOR were .2 ratings point of each other. Now that’s close!

Sun Sentinel
WLTV edges WSVN for No. 1 in Miami-Fort Lauderdale

American Idol is a powerhouse, but the telenovelas on WLTV-Ch. 23 appear invincible.

Fueled by other-worldly ratings for American Idol, WSVN-Ch. 7 came close to vaulting over longtime market leader WLTV. However, the Spanish-language station’s strength across the week as opposed to some weak nights for Fox on WSVN enabled Univision affiliate WLTV to hold on to its place atop the Nielsen ratings during the May sweeps. WSVN had to settle for No. 1 among English stations.

WLTV did hit a bump, as its main Spanish rival, Telemundo’s WSCV-Ch. 51, pushed to the top in late news, one of many time periods in which WLTV has enjoyed a stranglehold. However, WLTV continued to dominate the dinnertime news block, prime time and the overall sign-on to sign-off categories.

WSVN’s newscasts apparently enjoyed a halo effect from American Idol, possibly because American Idol news and speculation dominated so much of them. WSVN was No. 1 at 5 and 5:30 p.m., tied WPLG-Ch. 10 at 6 and crushed its second-tier competition at 10 p.m. with a rating that exceeded its English competitors’ late newscasts at 11 p.m. However, WSVN’s 11 p.m. newscast faded to last among English stations.

WPLG also had a strong May. In addition to tying WSVN at 6 p.m., it was No. 1 among English stations at 11, just ahead of WFOR-Ch. 4, which maintained its supremacy in midday news.

Buoyed by the resurgence of network partner ABC, WPLG also pressed WSVN for the top spot overall among English stations, a tight race in which WSVN, WPLG and third place WFOR finished within .2 of a rating point of each other.

The May sweeps is the end of an era in Miami-Fort Lauderdale in some ways. Next fall, Dr. Phil will move from WFOR to WPLG in place of the 5 and 5:30 newscasts, and WBZL-Ch. 39 will assume the new CW prime-time lineup, a marriage of the WB and UPN, with current UPN station WBFS-Ch. 33 becoming an independent.

The NBC6 people are so overjoyed at stealing the #1 spot in the morning news from 7news that they brought some cake and had a station-wide celebration. They even made a pretty graphic showing their ratings vs. those of the other stations and showing they pretty much rolled over CBS4 and Local10 in the morning. Congrats to them.

But.

They, NBC6, compared their ratings only from 5-7am, at least that’s the way I see it from reading the story on their site. 7’s “Today in Florida” ends at 9am, 2 hours later. So 6 probably was number one untill 7am but overall for the morning 7’s whole morning newscast comes out on top by 1 point

Story with a slideshow from their celebration at the NBC6 studios
NBC 6 #1 In Morning News

That should be filed under the ‘about fucking time’ category. They finally added RSS to their site separated in several different categories - South Florida news, National, World, Medical Reports, Help Me Howard and Other Special Assignments.

And come next month they should be unveiling an updated wsvn.com wtih more features

WSVN.com RSS