The more things change, the more they ... well, you know.

That's the story - or non-story - once again this year, as the latest local television stations' ratings show some shuffling of the numbers but no shift in the overall rankings of Edmonton's TV broadcasters.

Fall 2004 viewership tallies released yesterday by industry ratings tracker BBM Canada show that CTV affiliate CFRN still dominates in the all-important Edmonton and area supper-hour newscast ratings period, used as a measuring stick for general comparisons among stations.

Taking the ratings figures for the 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. time-slot for the 18-plus demographic, CFRN's News at Six posted some solid gains, while Global's newscast shed viewers. The still-mighty 'RN sits at an average of 143,100 viewers, up 6,000 over last fall's ratings, but Global dropped double that number to slip to 111,800 from 123,800 a year earlier.

"As always with these things there's some good news and some bad news," said Global news director and station manager Tim Spelliscy.

The bad news, obviously, was the flagship 6 p.m. newscast with anchors Gord Steinke and Lynda Steele losing viewers while CFRN's broadcast, with Daryl McIntyre and Carrie Doll, made gains.

The silver lining, said Spelliscy, was Global's freshly minted 5 p.m. newscast drawing more than 50,000 viewers nightly, and the weekend 6 p.m. telecasts jumping from an average of 35,800 to 50,200 pairs of eyeballs.

Getting the 5 p.m. show up and running was a priority last year, likely at the expense of the supper-hour newscast, Spelliscy said. "We knew with the focus we put on the five o'clock we'd probably see a little setback there.

"There's a lot of opportunity for growth. You can't be happy unless you're totally dominating the market. There's room for improvement in every single area."

Improvement was the name of the game at CFRN, as the supper-hour news numbers continued to climb, apparently eating into Global's audience.

"It's one where we looked at the (ratings) book and were blown away," said CFRN news director Steve Hogle. "To have more numbers than everyone else combined is staggering and is testament to the product we put out there."

It's also a testament to the ongoing struggle by A-Channel and CBC to recapture audiences and register viewerships in the five-digit range. Numbers for the now CHUM-owned A-Channel's 6 p.m. newscast didn't make huge gains, inching up just 800 viewers to 9,100 - nowhere close to the News@Six glory days in 2002, when more than 20,000 people tuned in each weeknight.

Meanwhile, CBC's Canada Now local newscast, which airs from 6:30 to 7 p.m. after the half-hour national show, dropped considerably from 8,300 viewers in the fall of 2003 to 5,500 for the same period in 2004.

One bright spot for CBC was having the top show of 2004 in the form of the 92nd Grey Cup telecast, which had 277,400 viewers across all age categories. Second place was Global's Survivor: Vanuatu with an average of 201,000 viewers per episode, and CFRN's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation rounded out the top three with 145,900 viewers.