Feder: Univision Chicago has winning story with historic ratings sweep

Friday's post on the latest ratings for Chicago's five English-language newscasts at 9 and 10 p.m. Monday through Friday focused on an unusual three-way tie for supremacy in a key audience measurement.

But there's a bigger story to emerge from Nielsen's May sweep when you include late-news ratings for the city's two Spanish-language stations — Univision Chicago WGBO-Channel 66 and Telemundo Chicago WSNS-Channel 44.

For starters, they were the only stations in the market to increase their overall viewership year-to-year.

Here are total household ratings for late newscasts in May 2021, followed by number of viewers and percent of increase or decrease in rating from May 2020:

ABC 7 (10 p.m.) 5.6 rating; 176,389 viewers; 20 percent decrease

NBC 5 (10 p.m.) 4.6 rating; 145,672 viewers; 6.1 percent decrease

CBS 2 (10 p.m.) 2.5 rating; 79,329 viewers; 32.4 percent decrease

WGN 9 (10 p.m.) 2.5 rating; 78,089 viewers; 13.8 percent decrease

Univision 66 (10 p.m.) 2.0 rating; 62,711 viewers; 5.3 percent increase

Telemundo 44 (10 p.m.) 0.8 rating; 26,215 viewers; 60 percent increase

WGN 9 (9 p.m.) 4.2 rating; 131,837 viewers; 8.7 percent decrease

Fox 32 (9 p.m.) 1.6 rating; 49,466 viewers; 15.8 percent decrease

Among viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 — the metric that matters most to advertisers — the real late-news winner turned out to be Univision Chicago. While its segment of the adult demographic declined year-to-year (as did most others), Univision Chicago topped all its competitors in the 25-to-54 demo for both its 5 and 10 p.m. weekday newscasts.

Teri Arvesu, vice president of content for Univision Chicago, noted it was the first time Spanish-language newscasts at 5 and 10 p.m. in Chicago won the key adult demo. “More importantly, happy the audience likes what we have to offer and trusts our team to deliver credible and useful information,” she said.

Get the full report, and more Chicago media news, at robertfeder.com.