Pauley Slips On Wednesday

NBC Unversal's new syndicated talker, The Jane Pauley Show, slipped slightly Wednesday to a 1.8 rating/5 share from Tuesday's 1.9 rating/6 share in 55 metered markets. That was after its slide from Monday's debut of a 2.4/7.

So far the show's rating is off 25% since its debut. Wednesday's 1.8/5 averaged a 28% drop from its lead-in average of a 2.5/8, and down 22% from its year-ago time period average of a 2.3 rating/7 share for September '03.

The good news was in the top market, New York, where the show (on WNBC-TV at 11 a.m.),  averaged a 1.7/5, up 21% from Tuesday's 1.4/4 (it's Ellen lead-in was also up a whopping 81%). In L.A. (on KNBC-TV at 10 a.m.), the show did a 0.9/3, down 18% from Tuesday. In Chicago on WMAQ at noon, the show did a 0.8/3, down 33% from Tuesday.

NBC U was also pointing to upbeat stories in various smaller markets, including a 1.6 in Atlanta that was up 60% from Tuesday, and a 4.2 in Detroit, up 14%.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.