LA Times via DCRTV

Baltimore may be called Charm City, but for WBAL — the local television station that carries NBC’s “The Jay Leno Show” — there isn’t much to smile about lately.

Usually, WBAL is in a neck-and-neck race for viewers against arch rival WJZ. But since NBC debuted “The Jay Leno Show” in prime time five weeks ago, the station’s 11 p.m. newscast — where silver-haired Rod Daniels’ 25-year run as anchor is the longest in Baltimore history — has been shellacked in the ratings. Now WBAL is a distant second.

[...]

In Baltimore, where WBAL has been engaged for years in a duel with WJZ for news supremacy, the station has gone from No. 1 in local news to a rapidly falling No. 2. The local media quickly picked up on the reordering.

“The battle appears to be over in the new post-Leno era,” longtime Baltimore Sun TV columnist David Zurawik recently wrote.

Key to the decline of WBAL’s 11 p.m. newscast has been Leno’s performance in the last quarter hour of his show, which is attracting 51,400 fewer households than a year ago.

Although all three stations in Baltimore have seen the audience for their 11 p.m. news slip in the last year, the rate of decline for WBAL is much steeper, implying it is more than a case of general viewer erosion.

But WBAL’s president and general manager, Jordan Wertlieb, isn’t worried yet.

“People want to declare the game over because we are down a couple of runs after the first inning. There is a long way to go,” he said. “We look at this as a 52-week strategy.”