WHTM fights the ratings battle with advertisers

Newspapers have distinct markets. There is one large paper for Lancaster, one for Harrisburg and one for York.

Radio stations, to some extent, have designated markets, or at least territories. WARM-FM 103.3 is a York station. WLAN-FM 96.9 "FM 97" is a Lancaster station. WINK-FM 104.4 "WINK 104" is a Harrisburg station.

But television is different. Local TV stations are in a hyphenated market.

It is the Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York market, and this can wreak havoc on station officials and advertisers trying to figure out just how many people are watching a given station.

Debbie J. Coffee, account executive/research coordinator at WHTM-TV ABC 27 in Harrisburg, grew up in a small town in Georgia where if a TV station was No.1, it was No.1 everywhere. But that is not the case here.

"We have to explain that to our media buyers—that they are just looking at those (designated market areas) as numbers and seeing that WGAL has twice the rating we have, " Coffee said, "but then we have to take them to task and explain that Harrisburg and Carlisle locations would not be helped by them just looking at overall numbers."

The Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York DMA is a 10-county area with 716,900 TV households.

Just a quick review: For television, ratings points are based on a percentage of the total TVs in a designated area. A ratings share is a percentage of actual TV viewers watching at a certain time.

Share, from a sales standpoint, is the more important number. But ad buys are made off a TV station's ratings, Coffee said.

She said the dilemma in this DMA is that Lancaster and York counties have 376,230 TV households, and WGAL-TV 8 dominates the Lancaster and York markets, which tends to skew the mathematical percentage that makes WGAL the No.1 station in the market, Coffee said.

So when I write in a column, as I did a few weeks ago, that WGAL has a rating twice as large as that of WHTM, that is not incorrect, but Channel 8 has more viewers, about 100,000 more homes, in Lancaster and York counties.

For example, in the February ratings book, WGAL had a 14.1 rating and WHTM had a 6 for the 6 p.m. newscast. But in the northern tier of the market area, which covers primarily Dauphin and Cumberland counties and has 286,110 TV homes, WHTM dominated, with a 27 share (total TVs watching) compared to the 17 share of WGAL. At 6 a.m. in Dauphin and Cumberland counties, WHTM had a 29 share, compared to the 17 share of WGAL. At noon, WHTM had a 27 share, WGAL a 19 share.

At 6 p.m. in the southern tier of Lancaster, York and Adams counties, which has more households, WGAL dominated with a 20.6 rating to WHTM's 2.0 and a 48 share to WHTM's 5 share.

So WGAL dominates the Lancaster and York markets, but WHTM is strong in the Harrisburg market.

The problem for WHTM is that it is part of a hyphenated market, Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York.

"In a hyphenated market like this, we have to sell our strength," said Joe Lewin, WHTM's president and general manager. "If you sell the market as a whole, it isn't fair to us; it isn't fair to the advertiser."

"Some advertisers get it. ... Most (times) you got an entry-level, not highly paid media buyer who may have 15 markets to buy, so (the buyer) doesn't have time to look closer," Coffee said. "They have been told to buy for Harrisburg and just look at the total DMA, without looking at specific areas."

Because WGAL comes out on top in most time slots, WHTM officials say they struggle with WGAL getting the dominant share of the advertising revenue.

"It drives us crazy from a news standpoint and a sales standpoint. When we are trying to negotiate with an agency (outside the area), it has no idea what this market is like — that we have three different metros and there's a Cadillac dealership in every town," Coffee said.

Staff writer Eric Stark discusses trends and tidbits in broadcast media each week in the Sunday News. Write to him at estark@lnpnews.com.