Talk about a lump of coal in the local TV Christmas stocking: Pittsburgh’s market rank will drop another position as Nielsen downgrades the region from No. 27 to No. 28 nationally for 2026.
Salt Lake City leapfrogged Pittsburgh, jumping one spot from No. 28 to No. 27.
The practical impact is likely minimal – back in 2020, when Pittsburgh dropped out of the Top 25, local advertising executives said it didn’t really matter – but the optics are not ideal, especially when TV stations seek to recruit talent. (Young, ambitious TV reporters often seek out the largest TV market they can get a job in.)
Nielsen estimates the number of TV homes in the Pittsburgh designated market area, which includes 16 counties, decreased by 4,730 homes, from 1,167,890 in 2025 to 1,163,160 homes in 2026.
It’s not a four-alarm fire – yet. Let’s save that for if (when?) Pittsburgh exits the Top 30. Baltimore and San Diego are hot on Pittsburgh’s heels.
Sweeps ratings
Year-to-year ratings for local newscasts generally declined from November sweeps 2024 to 2025.
In households, a measure of overall popularity, WTAE fared best with five first place finishes (5 and 6 a.m., 4, 5 and 6 p.m.) in eight weekday news time periods. KDKA-TV ranked first in two (12 and 11 p.m.); WPXI did not place first in any.
In the key demo of adults ages 25-54, which can be used by stations to set ad rates, all three stations were tied at noon. Beyond that, WTAE finished first in three news time periods (4, 5 and 6 p.m.). WPXI was first at 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. KDKA-TV and WTAE tied in the rating at 5 a.m.
Among non-news local shows, KDKA’s “Pittsburgh Today Live” handily won its time period in households but was one-tenth of a ratings point behind a tied-for-first “Live” on WTAE and “Today” on WPXI.
At 3 p.m., “Judy Justice” on WPXI ranked first in households while KDKA’s “Talk Pittsburgh” tied with “Kelly Clarkson” on WTAE. In the key demo, “Judy Justice” ranked first, “Clarkson” was second and “Talk Pittsburgh” ranked third.
‘Pluribus’
The best series of 2025, Apple TV’s “Pluribus” ended its first season Dec. 24 – season finale spoilers follow — with Carol (Rhea Seehorn) reverting to her more antagonistic stance against the Joined after her minder-turned-lover Zosia (Karolina Wydra) revealed a new plan to make Carol one of the Joined, erasing her individuality.
In “Pluribus,” an alien virus has connected the consciousness – and erased the individuality — of all but a handful of humans, including Carol.
Carol returned home via a helicopter that left a large crate on her driveway that Carol tells Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga), another un-Joined, contains an atom bomb. But was she speaking literally or metaphorically?
“I didn’t think about the fact that it could be metaphorical,” Seehorn said in a Zoom interview last week. “She’s so hurt by the betrayal that just happened, on top of being terrified of this clock ticking — again. She can’t just sit in that feeling. She reacts, and it made sense to me that she would say, ‘I want a bomb.’”
Seehorn sees Carol’s back-and-forth feelings toward the Joined, and especially her feelings for Zosia, as complex.
“It definitely has mitigating circumstances, like grief, [the] existential crisis of not just the 40-plus days of isolation [Carol experienced when the Joined “needed space” and left her], which I really do think broke her, but the thought that it’s not gonna end,” Seehorn said. “It isn’t just 40 days. It’s, ‘You’re going to die alone, never speaking to another human being for the rest of your life, on the couch watching ‘Golden Girls’ until you just rot away unless you would like to change something.’
“So there’s a real shift in her reasoning,” Seehorn continued. “I found it very interesting that the questions about how much their love is real versus manipulative. …[That] starts unpacking much bigger philosophical questions: What is real love? What is unconditional love? Are there any acts of altruism? Like, anybody that loves you, if they’re doing something for you, they did have an objective, so does that make it manipulative? Does that make it not real love?”
My geekiest question was about the Easter eggs: Wayfarer Airlines exists in “Pluribus” and in “Breaking Bad,” so does that mean characters that survived “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” have now been Joined?
“As far as I know, there is nothing where Vince is trying to set up that the ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Better Call Saul’ characters exist in this world and it is some sort of meta-simultaneous existence,” Seehorn said.
‘Heated Rivalry’
HBO Max’s Canadian import about gay hockey players has blown up into a phenomenon since its debut last month, and for good reason.
Although “Heated Rivalry” began with copious graphic sex scenes between closeted gay Canadian hockey star Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and bisexual Russian player Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), marking it as high-end smut, with its third, fifth and sixth episodes, “Heated Rivalry” became so much more.
Filled with emotion and tension around longing for love and the ability to be one’s authentic self, writer/director Jacob Tierney (“Letterkenny,” “Shoresy”) creates a show that advances beyond its provocative beginning and evinces skillful plotting.
Some viewers were dismayed when episode three focused on two different characters, Hunter (Francois Arnaud) and Kip (Robbie G.K.), but Tierney paid that detour off in spades with the final scene of last week’s penultimate episode that reunited Hunter and Kip in a big way and simultaneously advanced the Hollander-Rozanov relationship.
The sixth and last episode of season one – a second season is coming, likely in 2027 – debuts Dec. 26 and furthers the show’s evolution into an aching, uplifting, swoon-worthy romance.
Channel surfing
Ken Burns’ documentary series “The American Revolution” is the first PBS show to make it into the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 (acquired titles), leading PBS to extend the program’s free streaming window through the end of the year. The 12-hour series will re-air on TV over six Fridays, Jan. 9-Feb.13.