THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510040055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY BONKO
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
IF THE VERDICT in the O.J. Simpson case had been announced in prime time instead of early in the afternoon, as happened Tuesday, the audience might have been larger than for any Super Bowl telecast.
Mega ratings.
When your humble columnist was in Los Angeles last summer with other members of the Television Critics Association, I heard network news executives predicting that if the reading of the Simpson verdict took place between 7 and 11 p.m., it would attract more viewers than the finale of ``M*A*S*H,'' which caught the attention of 60.2 percent of the television audience in 1983.
With so many Americans on the job Tuesday afternoon, and away from their homes and TV sets, it is unlikely that the national ratings for the Simpson verdict will equal or exceed the numbers of the five most watched programs in television history.
They include the ``M*A*S*H'' finale; the ``Who shot J.R.?'' episode of ``Dallas'' in 1980; the ``Roots, Part VIII'' episode in 1977; and Super Bowl telecasts in 1982 and 1983. How many people in the 95.4 million television households in the United States might have been tuned into the Simpson verdict if the suspense ended at 7, 8 or 9 p.m. Tuesday instead of 1 p.m., as ordered by Judge Lance Ito in Los Angeles?
I say at least as many as saw the police chase Simpson's white Ford Bronco over the Southern California freeways shortly after the murders of Simpson's former wife and Ronald Goldman. Nielsen Media Research estimated that 60 million viewers watched that pursuit on a Friday night, when the percentage of U.S. households tuned in to television is generally the second smallest.
Saturday night is the night when the fewest Americans stay home to watch TV, according to Nielsen. Monday night is the hottest night for TV. Could it be because of ``Melrose Place'' on Fox? Or pro football on ABC?
Perhaps in anticipation of the verdict coming soon, Nielsen recently sent TV writers up-to-date figures on the viewing habits of Americans during the final stages of the Simpson trial.
Women in the Summer of 1995 watched more television than ever before - an average of four hours and 28 minutes a day. Men, too, spent more time before the TV set last summer than anytime in the past - three hours and 52 minutes a day. Until this week, the week of the long-awaited verdict, ratings for the Simpson coverage on cable were highest last February.
``One more surge was coming,'' predicted David Poltrack, executive vice president of planning and research for CBS when he appeared before the Television Critics Association in July.
That last great surge came Tuesday.
Even before the verdict, viewers by the millions continued to be drawn to the Simpson trial. Only the National Football League games on TNT on Sunday nights pulled better ratings on cable than Simpson and his supporting cast in a Los Angeles courtroom.
And the Simpson coverage created new TV stars, including Greta Van Susteren of CNN, the cable network's legal analyst who will host a new show, ``Burden of Proof,'' on CNN weekdays at 12:30 p.m. Van Susteren has been highly critical of Ito, saying among other things that it was stupid of Ito to withhold the reading of the verdict for almost 24 hours.
Go get 'em, Greta.
And did the reading of the verdict on Tuesday cause all the world to stop what it was doing and listen? Andrew Lack, the president of NBC News did not anticipate that would happen when he met with TV writers recently.
``Europeans are fascinated with Americans being fascinated with the trial. But O.J. Simpson doesn't really mean anything to people beyond the American culture,'' he said.
To billions, he is ``O.J. Who?'' by CNB