San Fran Evening, Late News Viewing -5%

Evening news viewership was down in the Bay Area, dipping 5% overall from May 2013, according to a TVNewsCheck analysis of the Nielsen’s count of weekday viewers aged 25 to 54 of news at 5, 6,10 and 11 p.m. during the May sweeps.

At 5 p.m. (the only time period to record a gain over last May), the big gainer among English-language broadcasts was No. 1 KPIX (CBS), which was up 40% from a year ago, while KNTV (NBC) had the largest drop (27%), landing it in fourth place. No. 3 KGO (ABC) was flat from last year as was second-place Fox affil KTVU. Last year the rankings had KTVU in first, followed by KPIX and KNTV tied at second, and then KGO and KRON (which was also fifth this year).

KPIX was also the most improved at 6 p.m. (+15%), but that got it into third place behind KTVU (flat) and KGO (-6%). Also posting a gain in the timeslot was KRON, which was up 14% for a fifth-place finish.

The 10 p.m. race was easily won by KTVU even though it was down 7%. KBCW posted an impressive percentage gain (67%), but that represented a rise from 3,000 viewers to 5,000.

At 11 p.m., the race was a tight one, with KPIX first (-8%) and KNTV a close second due to a strong 23% increase over last year. In third, KGO was down 31%, knocking it out of the time period’s first-place slot it occupied last year. KRON once again was a distant fourth, dropping 11%.

Among the Spanish-language stations, KDTV took first-place honors at both 6 and 11 p.m. The Univision affiliate was down 19% at 6 o’clock, but still won. Next was Telemundo’s KSTS (-10%). KDTV climbed 28% to win the race at 11, well ahead of KSTS, which fell 44%. (Editor’s note: In the chart below, the heading “10 PM News” under the Spanish-Language section should be “11 PM News“).