February sweeps

CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood had its most-watched February since 1994. The 90-minute feature-driven news program averaged 6.22 million viewers, growing 1% from February 2015. Osgood was in for most of the month, but Jane Pauley filled in last Sunday, as the longtime host recovers from knee surgery.

The Super Bowl tops the list, of course, along with the Grammys and the Oscars. Other things to watch for: Republican debates, return of The Voice and new shows.

The good doctor scored his biggest February numbers in seven years. Others with a strong month included Live with Kelly & Michael, Wendy Williams (up 19% from last February), most of the first-run rookies (up from their premiere weeks), several entertainment mags and three game shows.

Last year it was pretty obvious who the winners and losers were during the February sweep. The winners were the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics. The losers were everything else. But this year, while featuring another record for the big game, was a bit more complicated, including some interesting developments in dayparts outside of primetime, whose sweeps numbers just came in this week.

NBC won the February sweep for the second straight year, and for the second straight year it got a huge boost from sports. The Super Bowl sparked the network to a big advantage over second-place ABC, though it was down from last year, when it carried the Winter Olympics. NBC averaged a 3.1 adults 18-49 Nielsen rating during the four weeks used to set local ad rates, which ended Feb. 25. That was off 23% from last year’s 4.0.

Longevity is a hallmark of many successful marriages, but increasingly rare in news anchor pairings. At Cox Media’s Pittsburgh NBC affiliate WPXI however, David Johnson and Peggy Finnegan have been a team for 25 years. Today, with one day to go in the current sweeps period, they are second in the market with the coveted 25-54 demo for the late-afternoon time period.