Afternoon newscasts get high ratings

Move over Ellen and Dr. Phil.

South Florida viewers ages 25-54 seem to prefer WPLG-Ch. 10’s Kristi Krueger and Louis Aguirre at 3 p.m. among the English-language stations.

That’s according to Nielsen figures for the November ratings period from WPLG, the ABC affiliate in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market.

Last summer, the station replaced “The Dr. Oz Show” with two weekday news programs — “FirstCast at 3 p.m.” anchored by Krueger and Jenise Fernandez and then “News at 3:30 p.m.” with Aguirre and Nicole Perez. (In case you were wondering, “The Dr. Oz Show” moved to 2 p.m. weekdays over at WTVJ-Ch. 6. Sept. 4.)

Both news programs took the number one spots in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market for their time slots in November for the demographic of adult 25 to 54 among Englishlanguage shows, the Nielsen ratings showed.

“Local 10 News FirstCast at 3 p.m anchored by Jenise Fernandez and Kristi Krueger performed so well since its summer launch, we felt this November was the time to launch the new ‘Local to News at 3:30 p.m.” anchored by Louis Aguirre and Nicole Perez,” said Bert Medina, president and chief executive officer of WPLG in Pembroke

Park.

“This is a dynamic news market.” said Bill Pohovey, the station’s vice president and news director. “There is noticeable demand for local news in South Florida.”

The 25-54 demographic is the group that advertisers seek to reach through local newscasts. WPLG’s 3 p.m. newscast is

the only English-language local news program on at that hour in the market. At 3 p.m., WSVN-Ch. 7 broadcasts syndicated show “Divorce Court,” WTVJ has “Ellen” and WFOR-Ch. 4 airs “Dr. Phil.”

WPLG also said that it also led in the demographic among Englishlanguage stations in other afternoon and evening newscasts including 4 p.m., 5 p.m. 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. in November.