Last week, the Journal Sentinel reported that Channel 4 still leads the Nielsen ratings for the 10 o’clock news. That sounds good, but it isn’t really. The bigger, unreported story is that TMJ’s numbers actually have dropped since 2005. The station stayed on top only because Channel 12 also saw a decline. Indeed, when you combine the ratings for these two stations and Channels 6 and 58, viewership for broadcast TV news dropped by 12 percent in the last year. That’s remarkable.
Nor is this a one-year blip. In 1995, before Channel 58 came on the scene, the three broadcast TV news shows attracted 321,000 viewers. By 1998, even with Channel 58 added, the four stations were still drawing about the same numbers. That has steadily dropped to 267,000 total viewers this year, a decline of 17 percent.
The only good news is for Channel 58, whose viewership increased from a minuscule 27,000 people in 1998 to 45,000 in 2006. The biggest loser was TMJ, which plummeted from 137,000 to 96,000 viewers during this same period. The station has lost 30 percent of its audience. TMJ has to be alarmed.
The obvious cause of this decline is the growth of other choices on cable TV and the Internet. Many onetime viewers may no longer watch the news, or they could be watching satirical news shows like “The Daily Show,” which happens to run at 10 p.m.
Increasingly, we’re getting TV news with attitude, from Fox TV’s rightward slant to CNN’s recent decision to use opinionated hosts like Glenn Beck (another conservative). The Stephen Colbert show is a surreal spoof of Fox’s O’Reilly Factor. The idea of a godlike Walter Cronkite anchor who tells us “that’s the way it is” is no longer the way it is.
Where does all this leave local TV news? Maybe some show will take a chance on a harder news approach. As the numbers for these stations drop, they will be forced to experiment to find some way to stand out from the crowd. In-depth news would certainly be a departure.
Is Ald. Michael McGee Dead Meat?
Probably. The effort to recall him has gotten 2,300 signatures, far more than the 1,620 signatures needed. The effort was so popular even McGee himself signed the petition. (His father, former alderman Mike McGee, suggested his son had been hoodwinked, sort of, on his radio show on WNOV-AM.)
It’s unlikely that 581 signatures will be ruled invalid, so the recall election seems sure to occur. And McGee will have an aggressive black opponent, the recall’s organizer, ViAnna Jordan. Former Milwaukee School Board member Leon Todd and other black activists have also targeted McGee for extinction, calling him an embarrassment to the community. And the district includes Brewers Hill and parts of Riverwest, with white voters who may feel they’ve had enough of McGee, who’s had legal problems in both Milwaukee and Wauwatosa. Even weirder, he flirted with changing his name to (or was it from?) Michael Jackson.
McGee did beat longtime incumbent Marlene Johnson-Odom in 2004, but she had been coasting in her latter years. McGee got 53 percent of the vote, but there was a high black turnout because Marvin Pratt was running for mayor. A recall would mean a special election, with a low turnout, and those who’ve had enough of McGee are more likely to vote. Even with support from his father’s radio show, McGee/Jackson may not be moon walking to victory.
More on MATC
Last week, I questioned how Milwaukee Area Technical College could cost as much per pupil as a four-year UW college. MATC officials responded by noting that UW colleges have huge lecture classes served by one professor and teaching assistants. Using TAs lowers costs for universities and isn’t done at vocational technical colleges.
But it’s worth noting that many MATC courses are closer to high school than college. A significant portion of those earning MATC degrees are graduating from either the Adult High School or the GED program. Most of MATC’s offerings aren’t technical courses requiring specialized teachers and equipment but are general education courses aimed at lower-level college students. Should we spend as much for this as education at a four-year college?
There are many ways to look at cost per student. The Citizens for Responsive Government contend their figures are correct, showing MATC spends as much per pupil as Marquette University. MATC officials prefer a different way of measuring costs, but even their approach shows a per-student cost that’s higher than the average for the entire UW system, including everything from two-year colleges to the expensive flagship UW-Madison.
That seems completely out of whack. Universities typically pay far higher salaries to distinguished scholars because there is a scarce supply of them. Similarly, you’d expect to pay a higher salary to a professor with a doctorate than an MATC teacher who may lack a master’s degree. Yet, as noted before in this column, MATC instructors earn about $23,000 more on average than a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor and about $13,000 more than a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor.
That doesn’t make sense and deserves more scrutiny from the legislature.
(A word to readers: you’ll note a redesign of this Web site, with many more offerings, including recent features published in Milwaukee Magazine. Let us know how you like it.)
And try the Dish on Dining, critic Ann Christenson’s weekly column on Milwaukee restaurants.
