News we want to watch

Kirk Baird

Monday, April 17, 2000 | 8:49 a.m.

Sex sells. So does murder and greed.

It's not surprising, then, that the Binion murder trial, which has a healthy dose of all three, has been a ratings boon for Las Vegas 1(Cox Cable channels 1 and 39), a 24-hour local cable news channel owned by Cox Cable, KLAS Channel 8 and the Las Vegas Sun.

According to local ratings from the A.C. Nielson company, since Las Vegas 1 began its gavel-to-gavel coverage of the trial March 31, the daytime ratings for the 2-year-old station have more than doubled in some time slots.

According to ratings that tracked local viewership from April 3-7, Las Vegas 1 also found itself on the winning end of many ratings battles, beating high-profile competition such as "Oprah," "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" and "Days of Our Lives" among others, during its broadcast of the trial proceedings.

The increased viewership also has provided bigger lead-in audiences for its other programming, swelling those numbers as well: The station's "POV Vegas" weekday news program shot from a .2 rating to a 1.7 rating for its 5:30 p.m. broadcast.

(In the Las Vegas market, one ratings point equals 5,260 households.)

When asked about Las Vegas 1's ratings success, Bob Stoldal, station general manager, said he wasn't surprised by the numbers the coverage is producing. He said the combination of fascination with how the court system works mixed with one of the city's most prominent families was too tempting for many to miss.

Former topless dancer Sandy Murphy and her lover, Rick Tabish, are on trial for the murder of Ted Binion in September 1998. Murphy was the live-in girlfriend of Binion, whose family owns the Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas.

But Stoldal rejected any claims that it's the trial's subject matter that is the real draw.

"Every homicide case has a great deal of tragedy," he said. "I think it's too easy for the media to label this one as having a titillation factor. I think it's unfair to the process."

Regardless of why people are tuning in, the ratings have been "absolutely fantastic," said Julie Neil, vice president of Outback Media, a local media buying company. It has "disrupted" daytime viewing with both live coverage and taped trial recaps, she said.

"And as the trial gets going and gets more complicated, it's going to increase interest in the market and will increase viewership," she said.

Neil said it's not unreasonable to expect half of Las Vegas' population to tune in to the trial near its end. The problem, however, is for the station to maintain that level when the trial is complete.

That's a problem that's plagued many cable news channels, said Jim McConville, cable editor for Electronic Media, a weekly trade publication that covers television. McConville said that stations such as MSNBC and CNN enjoyed increased viewership during the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal. Court TV similarly benefited during the O.J. Simpson trial.

"(Court TV's) ratings quadrupled," he said. "But as soon as the trial was over the ratings shot back down to the meager viewership they were before."

But Stoldal isn't worried.

"Clearly there will be a decrease in viewership," he said, "but it won't go back to the old spot."

Las Vegas 1 provides live and taped daytime coverage of the Binion trial weekdays from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for noon to 12:30 p.m. and 1 to 1:30 p.m.

Following are average ratings comparisons between Las Vegas 1 and KVBC (Channel 3), KVVU (Channel 5), KLAS (Channel 8) and KTNV (Channel 13):

9:30-10 a.m.: LV1 -- 3.2; Channel 3 -- 2.7; Channel 5 -- .9; Channel 8 -- 4.5; Channel 13 -- 1.1.

10-11 a.m.: 4.5 -- LV1; 2.4 -- Channel 3; 1.6 -- Channel 5; 3.9 -- Channel 8; 1.3 -- Channel 13.

11 a.m.-noon: 4.7 -- LV1; 2.1 -- Channel 3; 2.1 -- Channel 5; 6.1 -- Channel 8; 2.3 -- Channel 13.

12:30-1 p.m.: 4.3 -- LV1; 3.7 -- Channel 3; 2.1 -- Channel 5; 4.9 Channel 8; 4.5 -- Channel 13.

1:30-2 p.m.: 3.1 -- LV1; 2.3 -- Channel 3; 1.3 -- Channel 5; 3.4 -- Channel 8; 4.4 -- Channel 13

2-3 p.m.: 4.3 -- LV1; 2.8 -- Channel 3; 1.0 -- Channel 5; 3.1 -- Channel 8; 5.3 -- Channel 13

3-4 p.m.: 5.2 -- LV1; 4.0 -- Channel 3; .9 -- Channel 5; 4.1 -- Channel 8; 4.0 -- Channel 13.

4-5 p.m.: 5.2 -- LV1; 5.2 -- Channel 3; .7 -- Channel 5; 5.1 -- Channel 8; 5.1 -- Channel 13.

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