News show on Dong-A cable channel sets rating mark

“News A,” the main news program of The Dong-A Ilbo-owned cable network Channel A achieve a rating of 4 percent Sunday for the first time since general program cable TV channels were launched one year ago.

The first part of “Special News A” aired at 10 p.m. Sunday had a rating of 4.02 percent, the highest among news programs aired by such networks, according to a survey of paying subscribers in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province by Total National Multimedia Statistics, or TNmS.

The instantaneous rating of the program rose to 6.37 percent, with the second part at 11 p.m. coming in at 3.06 percent and the third 12:10 a.m. with 3.13 percent. Combined, the 190-minute program News A had a rating of more than 3 percent.

Sunday`s edition of News A provided special coverage on the results of the first TV debate between the three main presidential candidates. The third part of the program, which was broadcast from 12:12 a.m. to 1:05 a.m., recorded a higher rating than major terrestrial channels such as MBC (2.97 percent) and KBS-1 (1.67 percent).

YTN, a 24-hour cable TV channel specializing in news, never showed an hourly rating of 4 percent in 2000 since its launch in 1995. A TNmS source said no statistics were compiled about cable TV programs until 2000.

The daily average rating of Channel A from 6 a.m. Sunday to 1 a.m. the following day was 1.26 percent, exceeding the 1-percent barrier for a cable TV channel for the third consecutive day and ranking fifth after four terrestrial channels.

jjj@donga.com