By the end of Brett Favre's return to Lambeau Field on Sunday, 49.7 percent of southeast Wisconsin's TV households -- 74 percent of TVs on at the time -- were tuned to the Green Bay Packers' loss to the Minnesota Vikings.
That translates to 448,000 area households tuned to the game's sad conclusion on Channel 6.
Preliminary Nielsen Media Research overnight ratings show a strong average rating for the entire 3:15 p.m. game, an audience of more than 412,000 area households. That's 45 percent of all TV households in the area, and a 70 percent share of TVs on at the time.
Final numbes aren't due out until Monday afternoon, but the preliminary ratings should provide a pretty accurate measure.
And the numbers prove that the Favre story hasn't yet grown old for Wisconsin TV viewers.
On TV: As expected, cable's TNT has picked up NBC's canceled "Southland." All 13 episodes of the show -- including the six episodes produced for this season -- will start airing on TNT in the 9 p.m. Tuesday slot on Jan. 12.
- It hasn't been announced, but the buzz is that Caitlin Morrall, currently of WAUK-AM (540), will take over morning traffic duties on Channel 4 after the departure last week of Lisa Manna. Morrall, Miss Wisconsin 2007, would be the second pageant winner to join Channel 4 now that former Miss Minnesota 2004 Tiffany Ogle is co-hosting "Morning Blend" at 9 a.m. weekdays with Molly Fay. Jodi Becker, part of the WTMJ-AM (620) afternoon team, filled in Monday.
- A survey of HDTV owners shows that more of them are actually watching high-definition programming than they did two years ago. The survey by Knowledge Networks says that only 26 percent OF HDTV owners surveyed in 2007 watched HD programs daily. In 2009, that percentage is 43 percent. The survey shows men are more likely to choose an HD program over standard definition when both are available, 58 percent men vs. 41 percent women.
- Speaking of numbers, Nielsen Media Research says TV viewing is up among kids. Children aged 2-5 spend 32 hours a week in front of a TV screen, while kids 6-11 watch about 28 hours a week. Those are the highest numbers in eight years.
- With the apparent end, at least for now, of a regular Gosselin family TV show, Kate Gosselin sits down with NBC's Natalie Morales at 8 tonight on TLC for something called "Kate: Her Story."
- NBC has issued its list of November sweeps hosts for "Saturday Night Live," starting with Taylor Swift hosting and singing this weekend. She's followed Nov. 14 with the icy hot January Jones from AMC's "Mad Men" and the Black Eyed Peas; and then Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the Dave Matthews band on Nov. 21. If you don't know Gordon-Levitt's name, he played opposite Zooey Deschanel in "(500) Days of Summer."
Jon Stewart and Fox News, again: If you missed it on Thursday night's "Daily Show," Comedy Central's Jon Stewart again did what he does so well, using existing video to tell a detailed -- and funny -- story.
This time, he used Fox News Channel's own protestations about the supposed White House war against it to raise the interesting question of how much "news" is actually aired on the cable channel.
The video follows below.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
