July 3-Way Tie For TV Stations

Three of the four Northwest Arkansas television stations that provide original content newscasts were winners according to the latest ratings released by Nielsen Media Research. The numbers are for July and are for Benton, Washington and Madison counties and exclude the 11-county designated market area.

 A commitment to sports coverage and “knocking-on-their-doors” journalism has put KNWA-TV, Channel 51 at the top of the 10 p.m. newscasts in Northwest Arkansas with a 5.6 rating. The NBC affiliate was the third most watched at 10 p.m. according to February numbers.

CBS affiliate KFSM-TV, Channel 5 maintained its dominance as the 6 p.m. leader with a 7.1 rating and ABC affiliate KHOG-TV, Channel 29 (which also operates Fort Smith’s KHBS-TV, Channel 40) won the 5 p.m. slot with a 5.9 rating.

Fox affiliate KFTA-TV, Channel 24 has a 9 p.m. newscast, so an apples to apples comparison is impossible. The station’s 9 p.m. rating of 1.8 was below the other three station’s ratings at the same time, which ranged from 2 to 4.1 but are not shown.