There is good news and bad news for Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the conservative radio talk show host whose remarks about homosexuality have prompted dozens of advertisers to suspend their support of her fledgling TV program just as the hourlong talk show is trying to find its legs.
The 6-week-old “Dr. Laura,” broadcast at 2 p.m. on CBS-Ch. 2, is faring better in Chicago, the third-largest media market, than in New York and Los Angeles, the top two.
The program has averaged a 1.6 rating here, substantially higher than the 1.0 rating in New York and Los Angeles, according to Nielsen Media Research figures. That’s a potentially encouraging sign for the program that was deported from Canada last week after just three weeks on the air.
Being shown the door in places like Red Deer, Alberta, hardly qualifies as a death blow. But the abrupt decision by four stations in Canada, a nation that has a voracious and not terribly discriminating appetite for U.S. entertainment, has put the focus on the big U.S. markets, to see if audiences are warming up to Dr. Laura.
In Chicago, the program opened its first week in September with a 2.4 rating, watched by 7 percent of the sets in use. By the second week, one-third of the audience found something else to do, and the rating plunged to a 1.6, or a 5 share. The erosion has continued, falling in the last two weeks to a 1.3 rating, or 4 share.
Schlessinger, who called homosexuality deviant and a derivative of “biological error,” apologized for her remarks last week in a letter to Variety magazine.
Popular radio talkers rarely carry their success over to television. Rush Limbaugh was a noticeable failure in front of the camera. Radio veteran Larry King tops a short list of TV successes, but he has done it on cable, where the ratings imperative is not as great.
Schlessinger’s difficulty in making the transition to television was compounded when she became embroiled in the controversy over her remarks.
The situation is a sticky one for CBS, which dumped entertaining maven Martha Stewart’s show in the belief that Schlessinger would be a ratings hit. A year ago at this time, Stewart’s numbers were rising and were roughly 30 percent above Schlessinger’s current average rating.
How and when to dump “Dr. Laura”–if it comes to that–will be complicated for Channel 2 and its owner, CBS Corp. Paramount Television Group is the syndicator of the program, and Paramount is owned by Viacom Corp., the corporate parent of CBS.
What’s next for Dr. Laura? A representative for Channel 2 declined Wednesday to comment on the ratings slide or future plans for the program.
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– Baseball or hardball, Part 2: Two weeks after choosing the baseball playoffs over the presidential debates, Chicago’s NBC-Ch. 5 cast its ballot for politics Tuesday night, creating some confusion for sports fans and an unprecedented ratings bonanza for WCPX-TV Ch. 38.
NBC stations, including Channel 5, were at the center of a controversy two weeks ago when Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard slammed them and Fox network stations for broadcasting baseball, as NBC did, or entertainment programming instead of the debates.
The argument from many NBC station managers, including Channel 5’s Larry Wert, was that plenty of broadcast and cable outlets were available for people to watch the debate.
Channel 5 reversed itself and announced it would carry Tuesday night’s debate and put the American League Championship Series game between the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners on Pax TV’s Channel 38.
“It was a tough call the first time, and it was an equally tough call this time,” said Wert, who said a contributing factor in Monday’s decision was the fact that the White Sox had been eliminated from the playoffs.
Of the 13 NBC owned-and-operated stations, three changed their minds after the first debate: The NBC-owned stations in Chicago and Philadelphia that had carried baseball on Oct. 4 carried the debate Tuesday ; NBC’s Birmingham, Ala., station chose baseball.
“This was the last debate, it was a different format and polls showed a high percentage of Americans sitting on the fence,” Wert said. “And we knew we could put the game on Channel 38.”
NBC owns a 32-percent stake in Pax TV, the fledgling broadcast network whose programming is primarily reruns.
The result was decidedly mixed. The game produced a record 5.5 rating for Channel 38, reaching 8 percent of the TVs in use. That’s the same audience that Channel 5 attracted for the debate, and a larger audience than Channel 5 drew when it broadcast baseball two weeks ago.