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THE PHILADELPHIA AREA IS GEARING UP TO HOST THE X GAMES, THE ANNUAL WORLD wide extreme sports competition produced by ESPN that is expected to attract more than 200,000 people from Aug. 17-23. The arrival of the X Games has many Philadelphia media outlets developing marketing and advertising tie-ins to the event. Comcast Communications, the market's dominant cable TV operator, is a full marketing partner in the Games; Comcast also owns the First Union Center, the South Philly arena where many X events will take place. Along with ESPN and ESPN2, ABC's owned-and-operated WPVI-- TV in Philadelphia will televise the Games.
Philadelphia is the country's fourth-largest TV market, with 2.7 million TV households. WPVI is the longtime leader in local news ratings, although NBC O&O WCAU-TV has mounted a strong challenge to WPVI's dominance. In the February sweeps, WCAU toppled WPVI in the household ratings at 11 p.m. weekdays for the first time in about 25 years, earning an average 12.6 rating/22 share to WPVI's 11.9/2. WCAU's convincing margin of victory at 11 has been a big story in the Philadelphia broadcast TV market this year.
Dave Davis, president and general manager of WPVI, attributes much of the station's weakness in the February sweeps to lackluster performances by ABC network shows in prime time compared to NBC's. "There was a large margin in the lead-in to the late news, and certainly that was a large factor," Davis says. In the last 15 minutes of prime time, for example, ABC shows on WPVI averaged an 11/17 in households, compared to the 16/24 earned by NBC programming on WCAU. WCAU executives did not return calls.
Despite weak national spot TV spending so far this year, local broadcast ad sales have held up fairly well, Davis says. In the first quarter, WPVI's local business got a lift from two major events, Philadelphia's annual auto and flower shows.
In May 2000, CBS O&O KYW-TV and UPN outlet WPSG-TV in Philadelphia became Viacom's largest-market duopoly. The sister stations have combined some business operations, including creative services and public relations, at WPVI. The stations' ad sales staffs are continuing to operate separately, although WPSG's sales staffers eventually are to move into WPVI's offices. Layoffs resulting from the formation of the duopoly...