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WILM Does More Than Survive
WILM Ratings Rise |
WILM-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina, has been on the air less than six months, and it’s already hitting high tide. According to the Nielsen Program Averages for July 2000, “60 Minutes” at 7:00pm on Sundays is winning its time-slot in WILM’s viewing area. WILM is also enjoying high ratings in other time slots, including:
Wilmington is the 151st ranked market in the country, and, therefore is not a metered market like that of sister-station WRAL-TV in Raleigh. Because WILM is a diary market, they receive cumulative ratings in February, May, July and November. Raleigh is in the 29th ranked market in the United States. WRAL receives overnight ratings each day because television sets in their markets are directly connected to the meters.
WILM-TV Station Manager Connie Knox is encouraged by the rising numbers, “We are very excited about the growth in our ratings. . . . WILM is definitely on the rise. Recently, we increased our cable homes again and we are quickly gaining coverage in the market. WILM is becoming a familiar name in the market after only being on the air as a CBS affiliate for a little more than four months.”
In August of 1999, Capitol Broadcasting Company signed an agreement to purchase the then-UPN affiliate, WSSN-LP in Wilmington. CBC then converted the station to a CBS affiliate with the call letters WILM-TV. WILM went on-air with CBS in late March of 2000, and the station had its CBS kick-off party in April of 2000. The station signed a retransmission agreement with Time Warner Cable for full-time carriage of the signal, meaning that Wilmington viewers now have full-time access to CBS programming locally. The station is also being carried on area cable by Charter Communications, and together, these two systems reach nearly 100,000 homes. The area had been without a local CBS affiliate for six years previous to this purchase.
WILM Co-hosts “Survivor” Party
As CBS made ratings history with the final episode of “Survivor,” 28 million households-or slightly more than one in four in the U.S.-tuned in to the finale at some point during the two-hour broadcast, WILM decided to capitalize on the show’s success.
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WILM worked with local radio station WGNI to host a “Survivor” Party at the Port City Chop House during the airing of the final episode on Wednesday, August 23.
Party attendees watched “Survivor” on a big screen TV with sound amplified by a DJ sound system. WGNI’s on-air talent conducted contests, like bobbing for rats, before the show and during commercial breaks. The Chop House provided Rat-Kabobs, Worm Gumbo, Chocolate Covered Bugs, Fish and more. WILM even
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Richard Hatch, the winning castaway of the CBS television hit “Survivor” |
did a live call-in with a graphic from the Chop House just prior to the show inviting people to come down and join the fun.
In all, the party was a huge success. They packed in about 250-300 people in the patio and the bar. Additionally, they gave away the grand prizes, including a $500 gift certificate for furniture, camping gear and a big screen TV, from the finalist of the Weekly “Survivor” Contest that they had been running throughout the past ten weeks of “Survivor”.
