note from your friendly blogarist: “Paint by Numbers” will be an occasional, yet regular,  feature of daily Xpress meant to reach behind the press releases for a more accurate picture of the state of broadcast news than reported by MSM and industry websites.

WEEK TO WEEK NUMBERS ALONE DON’T TELL JACK

In our continuing tutorial how ratings reports are spun by network communications offices, our daily Xpress paint by numbers team looks at the hot-off-the-press report from a website that often looks like a public relations arm of some of their favorite broadcast news execs.

Sunday Show Ratings: December 12

By Chris Ariens on December 17, 2010 2:09 PM

A blanket of snow across the Midwest may have helped give a boost to the Sunday morning public affairs shows. With more viewers homebound, all four programs saw week-to-week growth last Sunday. “Meet the Press with David Gregory” was #1 again with 3.66 million total viewers; a 600K lead over #2 “Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer.”

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Network Program Total Viewers A25-54
NBC “Meet the Press” 3.66M 1.26M
CBS “Face the Nation” 2.96M 940K
ABC “This Week” 2.33M 700K
FOX “Fox News Sunday” 1.430M 540K
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SUNDAY MORNING PAINT BY NUMBERS KIT

For a true analysis, it’s important to see how the network morning shows  fared for the week of December 6, 2010 against the same week in 2009.  In adults 25-54, the demo we explained in our earlier tutorial, CBS’ Face the Nation is +24%, NBC’s Meet the Press is + 15% and ABC’s This Week is the only Sunday morning news show to mark a loss in viewership: -19%.

More later.