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SOME OF THE LOWER-RATED TV STATIONS in burgeoning Jacksonville, Fla., have recently achieved ratings gains that have come as much from unusual scheduling as from year-old people meters.
Two years after ABC affiliate WJXX-TV went on the air, the sixthranked Allbritton outlet has finally shown strong signs of the ratings growth expected of a network affiliate. Over the past year, WJXX doubled or tripled its share of audience for local newscasts. Recent ratings gains are due, in part, to the June 1998 switch from a diary-based ratings service to people meters. But Carol Zingone, a media supervisor for Dalton Rosberg Advertising, also singled out the station's 30-minute local newscast at 7 p.m.-the only one at that hour-as the key factor in its recent success. From February 1998 to February '99, the program increased its share 300 percent, from a 1 to a 4.
"It's more in-depth... [and] brings more viewers into...