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TOURISM, THE BACKBONE OF THE ORLANDO-DAYTONA BEACH-MELBOURNE, FLA., MARket, has suffered as a result of the recession that began last spring and fears about air travel that followed the September terrorist attacks. Wait Disney Co., the market's largest employer, has laid off about 1,400 workers in the Orlando area since last March. In October, the company asked staffers at Walt Disney World to volunteer for a 20 percent reduction in hours and salary (there have been few takers so far) and cut back the operating hours of some attractions in the park. After a record year in 2000, attendance at Disney's Orlando theme parks plummeted 25 percent during October and the first half of November.
Disney has ramped up its advertising efforts throughout Florida and in neighboring Georgia and Alabama to attract more park visitors who live within driving distance of Orlando. The effort helped generate a solid rebound in business during the holiday season. "We were forced to close the Magic Kingdom [at one point] because attendance was so strong," says Bob Jimenez, a Disney representative.
Thanks to its continuing population growth, Orlando last fall broke into the country's top 20 television markets (with 1.18 million TV homes) as ranked by Nielsen Media Research, a promotion that should help attract more national ad dollars to the market.
Local media outlets in the Orlando area are looking forward to some new political ad spending this year from the creation of a new congressional district. The market is also hoping to benefit from races in 2002 for governor, mayor of Orlando and officials of Orange County.
Cox Broadcasting's ABC affiliate WFTVTV is the market's longtime news leader, but the station's ratings lead has been shrinking in recent years. At 11 p.m., WFTV has lost more than 40 percent of its household viewers since 1996. In last November's sweeps, WFTV averaged a 6.3/13 at 11 p.m., behind Hearst-Argyle Broadcasting's NBC affiliate WESH (8.9/18) and Post-Newsweek's CBS affiliate WKMG-TV (8.4/17). David Lippoff, vp/gm of WFTV and Cox-owned Independent outlet WRDQ, says WFTV's news ratings problems at 11 p.m. are the result of weak lead-in programming from ABC's prime-time schedule. Lippoff notes that the station's 11 p.m. news features the same anchor team as its market-leading 5 and 6...
