ATLANTA — For the full February Sweep, Channel 2 Action News won every newscast, often beating the combined competition according to the Nielsen weekday average of Adults 25-54. That included winning the Late News which included 18 days of Olympics coverage.
Channel 2 Action News attracted 55% of Adults 25-54 watching local news in the Atlanta market, more than the other three local news stations combined. WAGA ranked second with 26% of news viewing.
Digital Suite February Report Year-Over-Year, the station's digital suite grew visitors by 240%, video plays rose 381% and Video Live Streams climbed 320%.
WSB-TV’s iPhone and Android versions of Severe Weather Team 2 Apps hit 230,000 downloads.
By the end of the Sweep, Channel 2’s Facebook “Likes” grew by 335% over last February to 305,000. Twitter followers grew 106% to 92,700.
Winter Storm #2
Two weeks after the January storm, Winter Storm #2 headed into North Georgia on February 11, threatening catastrophic ice damage.
“After the January storm stranded commuters on the roads, government officials and the general public were on high alert this time around,” said Chief Meteorologist Glenn Burns. “Karen Minton, David Chandley, Brad Nitz and I began seeing the hint of the storm Saturday and continued to track its progress. We pinpointed the timing of dangerous freezing rain to begin overnight Tuesday. This gave officials and the public plenty of time to get ready and plan to keep their families safe at home.”
“We were actually deep into producing a prime time special on the first storm when Glenn alerted us to the next one on the horizon,” said Mike Dreaden, News Director for Channel 2 Action News. “We quickly cancelled those plans and shifted into preparation for quite a different storm than January’s.”
Prepare and Execute
Dreaden’s coverage team put together a thorough storm coverage attack plan. Freezing rain would limit mobility and required a completely different logistical approach to ensure rich live coverage and great video over the course of the storm. Severe Weather Team 2’s expert advice guided the station’s placement of crews and live trucks. The preparation filled Channel 2’s newscasts with live reports from more than twenty locations by as many as 25 reporters from across North Georgia.
Continuous Coverage for 39 Hours
Once the snow started to fall, Channel 2 Action News stayed on the air with live coverage for 39 hours straight. Extended coverage started at 10 p.m. Tuesday night and ran through 1 p.m. on Thursday, covering the storm from start to finish.
The digital platforms streamed all of the live coverage. Channel 2’s digital team created more than 100 original video reports for station mobile apps and website.
Georgians Turned to Channel 2 Action News Above All Other Local Stations
TV ratings showed that 61% of the audience turned to Channel 2 Action News during the 39 hours of coverage. Georgians overwhelmingly counted on Channel 2 Action News to deliver constant coverage of this major weather and news event.
Multiplatform Digital Coverage 24/7
The use of WSB-TV’s digital apps, wired and mobile website skyrocketed. Video plays topped 1.37 million and live video streams of Channel 2 Action News coverage were over 330,000. The Severe Weather Team 2 App grew by over 60,000 downloads during the storm.
“The news and weather teams did a great job of providing our viewers with moment-by-moment details of the storm on every platform available, wherever our viewers were,” said Tim McVay, Vice President and General Manager. “Our team’s terrific work reinforced and delivered on the Channel 2 Action News promise of coverage you can count on.”
Contact
Steve Riley, Director of Creative Services
1601 West Peachtree St. NE
Atlanta, GA 30309
Office: 404-897-7447
About Channel 2 WSB-TV The ABC Affiliate is part of Cox Media Group and ranks as Atlanta's number one local television station. The station also operates its website, wsbtv.com, its mobile site, m.wsbtv.com, plus News, Weather and Traffic Apps, and airs MeTV on its digital sub-channel 2.2. WSB-TV also provides news, weather and traffic on Twitter @WSBTV and on WSB-TV's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/wsbtv
About Cox Media Group Cox Media Group is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of CoxReps. Additionally, CMG owns Cox Target Media, which operates Valpak, one of North America's leading direct marketing companies, and Savings.com, a leading online source for savings. The company's operations currently include 14 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 57 radio stations, eight daily newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services. CMG currently operates in more than 20 media markets and reaches approximately 52 million Americans weekly, including more than 30 million TV viewers, more than 4 million print and online newspaper readers, and 14 million radio listeners. For more information about Cox Media Group, please check us out online at www.coxmediagroup.com
WSBTV
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