Indianapolis

Sports is a major engine of the Indianapolis economy. The Indianapolis 500 draws nearly half a million auto racing fans to the city each Memorial Day weekend. Indianapolis is the headquarters of college sports' governing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the city last year hosted the NCAA's marquee basketball event, the men's Final Four, at the Conseco Fieldhouse. Conseco, which opened downtown in November 1999, is also the home of the NBA's Indiana Pacers. The NFL's Indianapolis Colts, who currently play in the 17-year-old RCA Dome, could get a new stadium downtown in the near future. Sports has played a significant role in the revitalization of downtown Indianapolis, helping spur local businesses.

Despite the center city's resurgence, growth in local media in Indianapolis has slowed a bit over the past year. Indianapolis has fallen out of the top 25 television markets in the country to No. 26, with 974,390 television households. Advertising sales in local broadcast television and radio have been in a lull for several months now.

"We saw everything kind of screech to a halt in this market-the fourth quarter practically died," says Frank Friedman, media director with Caldwell VanRiper/Marc, an Indianapolis ad agency. "In January, I saw some unit rates that I have never seen before. It was definitely a buyer's market."

Indianapolis "has been a challenging market" for broadcasters, says Linda Gray, vp/general manager of WXIN-TV, Tribune Broadcasting's Fox affiliate. Because Indiana has long been staunchly Republican, presidential candidates tend to bypass the state; as a result, Indianapolis TV stations did not enjoy much of an uptick from political spending in 2000. So far this year, local spot spending in the state capital is healthier than national, although the automotive category is particularly weak, Gray says.

Indianapolis' TV news scene is essentially a two-man race between LIN Television's CBS affiliate WISH-TV and NBC affiliate WmR-TV, owned by Dispatch Broadcast Group. In Nielsen's January ratings survey, WISH won the 6 p.m. news competition, while WTHR won at 5, 5:30 and 10 p.m.

From an advertising perspective, WISH benefits from having a very strong followup to its 6 p.m. newscast with its 7-8 p.m. lineup of the syndicated Wheel of Fortune and jeopardy! Both prime-access shows earned a 20 share in...