WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, South Carolina spiked their 6 p.m. news ratings by 30% this week by offering a DTV home test for their viewers.  I have written about a similar test in Honolulu during the May sweeps that was also a big success.  This is an excellent public service for your viewers - and it drives viewership.

WSPA has been averaging a 9.1 rating/16 share during the July sweeps.  They popped a 12 rating and 21 share with their DTV test, which ran at 6:20 p.m.

They used a phone bank to answer viewer questions during the test that received over 300 calls.  There were also dozens of calls into the newsroom.  Many viewers wanted info on exactly how to hook up their set top box for DTV.  The station also found out that a lot of viewers had their coupon for the converters, but stores are out of the boxes, and now the coupons have expired.   News director Alex Bongiorno says they will be doing follow-up stories on both of these issues.

WSPA also heard from many Dish Network customers that they were not getting a digital signal from the satellite service.  The station called Direct TV and were assured that they would be ready by February.

The station also put a special display on their home page about DTV that answers the Top 7 Questions about the conversion.  You can check it out at http://www.wspa.com/.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 7:07 am and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.