Things you missed during Christmas…

In case you have been avoiding the media pages like PBRTV… (I know I make it really easy – especially recently – for you to ignore.)

WSHH (99.7) has, due to popular demand, decided to continue the all-Christmas format through December 31. – That’s at least part-way through the actual Christmas Season making things a bit more realistic. That may or may not give the station a slight edge in the “Holiday Book” when it comes out. Pittsburgh’s other “official” Christmas station, WWSW (94.5) ended its run, returning to classic hits, effective 12:01 a.m. Friday.

• Pittsburgh’s TV Market Ranking has dropped a notch. According to Rob Owen at the Trib, there are 4,730 fewer homes to which local stations can cater. Therefore we fall to Market #28 while Salt Lake City takes over #27. Owen doesn’t call it a “four-alarm fire” just yet, suggesting that we save the panic for when we fall out of the top 30. Cue the whining about “what’s left of Pittsburgh talent” about … now…
• In the same report, Owen says WTAE (4; DT 27) topped the overall ratings sweeps in November holding first place with the majority of their newscasts, KDKA-TV (2; DT 25) came in second with two first place newscasts, and WPXI didn’t have any. The 25-54 bracket, on which stations base their ad rates, all 3 stations tied for the Noon newscast; otherwise WTAE still appeared to top the book.