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SAY ONLY HIS FIRST NAME AND PRACTICALLY EVERYONE IN BIRMINGHAM KNOWS WHO you're talking about. Hometown hero Ruben Studdard won Fox's American Idol 2 singing competition last May. Beyond his vocal victory, Studdard endeared himself to local fans by sporting athletic jerseys during the show emblazoned with the number 205, Birmingham's area code.
As "Ruben mania" swept the market, WBRC-TV Fox Television's owned-and-operated station, made the most of it. "We got behind Ruben early on with a broad-based community effort," says Dennis Leonard, WBRC vp and general manager.
In the final quarter-hour of the show's May 20 finale, WBRC's numbers skyrocketed to an astounding 61 household rating and 71 share. Leonard says he believes WBRC's prime-time performance is among the best ever in the nation for a non-hometown Super Bowl or World Series station. Following the finale, WBRC's 9 p.m. newscast earned a 40.9/51.
Leonard believes the entire competition had a profound impact on the city as well. "There's something really unique about Birmingham. It's the epicenter of the Civil Rights movement," he says. Yet, at American Idol viewing parties throughout the market, blacks and whites cheered in unity, he points out, adding, "Ruben's rise was also Birmingham's rise as a city coming together."
The Birmingham television market, which includes Anniston and Tuscaloosa, ranks 40th in the country, with 697,570 viewing homes, and WBRC is its market leader. The station's early-morning news at 5 o'clock, Fox 6 Daybreak, nearly tripled the next-closest station in ratings and share in the November sweeps. WBRC, which produces more local news than any other station, also handily won the evening-news races at 5 and 6 o'clock. When 13-year veteran male anchor Art Franklin left at the end of May, the station hired Steve Crocker from WIS-TV, Liberty Corp.'s NBC affiliate in Columbia, S.C.
The late-news landscape has changed significantly in the past year, says David Doebler, president/gm of WVTM-TV, an NBC O&O. WVTM won the late-news race in November with an average 9.3/15, more than two rating points ahead of the 7.3/12 of Allbritton Communications' ABC affiliate WBMA and its largest margin of victory in the time period. WVTM ranked third a year ago.
Shortly after his arrival in February 2002, Doebler installed a new management team, hired some...