More than 39K view Milwaukee TV Midnight Mass

MILWAUKEE – When Thomas Laabs left the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist at 4 a.m. Christmas Day, by then the hundreds of feet of cable, three cameras, and personnel used to produce and telecast Midnight Mass were gone. What was yet to arrive was the feedback from viewers who had watched the first Midnight Mass telecast from the cathedral in 18 years.

“We received a lot of positive comments,” said Laabs, the parish’s director of administration and development. “It wasn’t the number of people who thanked us, but what they wrote: ‘Thank you for putting this on TV. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had Christmas Mass.’”

A ratings comparison provided by Channel 12 verified what the cathedral heard from viewers.

The station reported 16,344 homes were tuned in at midnight, representing a viewing audience of more than 39,700 people. Beginning at 11:30 p.m., Channel 4 aired Pope Francis’ Christmas Eve Mass, taped earlier, from St. Peter’s Basilica. The numbers provided by Channel 12 showed that Mass was watched in more than 12,700 homes, representing an audience of nearly 31,000 viewers.

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