Baltimore Market

Sunday's Super Bowl telecast drew a record audience of 1.5 million viewers at its peak in the Baltimore market, according to preliminary Nielsen figures provided by WJZ-TV. The audience is believed to be the largest for any show on Baltimore TV since the introduction of household meters in Baltimore in 1992. The telecast earned a rating of 59.6, which means three out of every five TV homes in the area was tuned to the game. "We were excited to share the Ravens Superbowl victory with viewers throughout the region," Jay Newman, general manager of Baltimore's CBS-owned station said Monday.

Maryland football is losing one game scheduled for M&T Bank Stadium. According to multiple officials, the Virginia Tech-Maryland game - which had been planned for 2014 - is now officially off the books since the Terps are departing the Atlantic Coast Conference after the 2013 season. But look for Maryland to return to the Ravens' stadium as soon as 2015. The Terps have done well there - they drew 69,348 to the stadium for a season-opening win over Navy in 2010 - and Maryland's future schedules will obviously include some big-name, Big Ten teams that could fill an NFL stadium.

When Kevin Luskin decided to fill a vast, long-vacant spot in a shopping center he owns in Towson, he envisioned a "category killer" store that would specialize in sofas and other seating - a store that would defy customers to leave without finding what they wanted. Luskin and his brother, Cary, opened the Sofa Store in April in a retail center that was once the site of a Luskins, the now-defunct TV and appliance chain founded by their father, Jack Luskin, who is now retired.

Cups of coffee warming their hands, the two women hovered over pansies. "I'm looking at the colors that remind me of my grandmother's garden. I'm deciding between the yellow and the white," said Malinda Peeples of Bolton Hill. "I'll probably get them both. " There was still a little room in her bags as Peeples made the rounds on Sunday, the first morning of the season at the city's farmers' market. "I got olive oil, milk, eggs and flour and cilantro. And we got our coffee, of course, at Zeke's," she said.

A Washington real estate firm's effort to move into the Baltimore market has fizzled. Spaulding & Slye shut its Towson commercial brokerage office and said it will close its local property management arm after it sells the two properties it oversees for Aetna Life & Casualty Co.The move represents a victory for Colliers Pinkard of Baltimore, which was upset by Spaulding's move into the market in February. Colliers Pinkard has an agreement to be the exclusive area representative of Colliers International, a network of commercial real estate firms.

Another "category killer" is coming to the Baltimore area.HomePlace Inc., a Cleveland-based home furnishings retailer, plans to enter the Baltimore market, the company confirmed yesterday.Details were unavailable, but typically each store -- called a category killer because of the breadth of merchandise -- is about 50,000 square feet and hires from 80 to 100 employees, both full-time and part-time.The move into Baltimore is part of a major expansion plan for the privately held chain, which opened its first store in September in Dallas and will open its 11th in Tulsa this weekend.

The CVS pharmacy chain plans a major push into the Baltimore market, with a target of 50 stores in three to five years, company officials said yesterday.CVS already has seven free-standing pharmacies and three mall locations in the Baltimore area, with three more under construction and another two planned for next year.The company is looking primarily at free-standing stores, and almost all will have a drive-through, Fred McGrail, director of corporate communications, said in an interview.

As Boscov's department store chief Kenneth S. Lakin stood last week among the buzz of workers preparing to open three new stores in the Baltimore area, he was reminded of advice an uncle once offered while building the 95-year-old family retail chain. "You can always get married again," Al Boscov once said. "But you can only open a store once." Boscov's executives, in the midst of the company's largest expansion in its history, are bringing new stores to the Baltimore area Oct. 28 in Marley Station Mall, Owings Mills Mall and White Marsh Mall with $12 million in renovations.

The closing of 25 Superfresh stores in the Baltimore area this summer meant new opportunities for other grocers looking to move to the region. One of those was the ShopRite chain, which opened stores last month in old Superfresh buildings in Timonium and White Oak. ShopRite is part of WakeFern Food Corp., a cooperative of companies that pool their resources to buy food at lower prices and thus have more money to spend on marketing. The New Jersey-based co-op includes 47 members that own more than 230 ShopRites in six states; it lists eight other stores in Maryland.

H. Wayne Huizenga never seems to do anything on a small scale.He won national recognition and enormous wealth by turning Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. and Waste Management Inc. into industry giants, then was vilified for turning his Florida Marlins baseball team from world champions into also-rans in a matter of months.Now he is bringing his fast-lane approach to automotive retailing to town -- and the Baltimore market might never be the same.Twenty months ago his company, Republic Industries Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., began a nationwide buying spree that turned it into the world's largest auto retailer.

On Sunday, Thomas Albright will wake up early. Before 5 a.m., the patriarch of the Albright Farms family will be in his truck, driving from his farm in Monkton to the city, where Saratoga and Holliday streets meet underneath the Jones Falls Expressway. By 7 a.m., he'll see his first customers — friendly faces coming to buy Albright Farms' produce or meat, kicking off another season of the Baltimore Farmers' Market & Bazaar. Albright has participated in the market since 1979, just two years after it opened.

The home on Belfast Road in Timonium was just a foundation when the newly married couple in their mid-20s made an offer on it last summer for $10,000 above the asking price. "This was the first time we were ready to even think about buying," said Tim Shirah, who with his wife, Michele Shirah, submitted a $395,000 bid and beat a handful of other offers for the new home. They wanted to stop "throwing money away on rent," he said. For the Shirahs, the time was right. They had money from their wedding to put more than 20 percent down and interest rates were at extraordinary lows.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is warning DirecTV customers in Baltimore and other markets they could lose access to Sinclair-owned stations starting March 1 because of an inability to reach agreement over the amount the satellite company pays to carry the stations and their programs. In the Baltimore market, Sinclair owns WBFF Fox 45 and has a local marketing agreement with WNUV The CW Baltimore. Sinclair's "carriage" agreement with DirecTV, which includes both stations, ends Feb. 28. "Although DirecTV and Sinclair have been negotiating for quite some time in an effort to reach a new agreement, at this time it does not appear that these efforts will be successful," Baltimore-based Sinclair said in a statement.

Sunday's Super Bowl telecast drew a record audience of 1.5 million viewers at its peak in the Baltimore market, according to preliminary Nielsen figures provided by WJZ-TV. The audience is believed to be the largest for any show on Baltimore TV since the introduction of household meters in Baltimore in 1992. The telecast earned a rating of 59.6, which means three out of every five TV homes in the area was tuned to the game. "We were excited to share the Ravens Superbowl victory with viewers throughout the region," Jay Newman, general manager of Baltimore's CBS-owned station said Monday.

More than one out of every two TV homes in the Baltimore market was tuned to the Ravens victory over the New England Patriots Sunday, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings provided by WJZ-TV. That translates to a 51.8 rating and a 71 share. That share means that about three our of every four homes with a TV in use during the time of the game were tuned to the CBS telecast. The game, which was seen here on Baltimore's CBS-owned station, drew an average audience of 1.126 million viewers, with a peak of 1.23 million viewers (ages 2+)

Baltimore TV viewers tuned in big time Sunday for the last home game of Ray Lewis. The average audience of all viewers (age 2 and older) was 877,700. Viewership peaked at 4 p.m. with 974,100 viewers watching on WJZ-TV, Baltimore's CBS-owned station. That was the largest audience in the Baltimore market for any show on any channel since last year's Super Bowl on NBC, according to WJZ and Nielsen. That would cover some pretty big events like the Olympics. The total number of people 2+ in the market is 2,707,000, which means one out of every three people living in this market was watching the Ravens victory over the Indianapolis Colts.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is warning DirecTV customers in Baltimore and other markets they could lose access to Sinclair-owned stations starting March 1 because of an inability to reach agreement over the amount the satellite company pays to carry the stations and their programs. In the Baltimore market, Sinclair owns WBFF Fox 45 and has a local marketing agreement with WNUV The CW Baltimore. Sinclair's "carriage" agreement with DirecTV, which includes both stations, ends Feb. 28. "Although DirecTV and Sinclair have been negotiating for quite some time in an effort to reach a new agreement, at this time it does not appear that these efforts will be successful," Baltimore-based Sinclair said in a statement.

Uber, the popular car-hire service that's been making waves (and controversy) across the U.S., is interested in setting up shop in Baltimore, according to its website and to a job description on Jobvite for an operations manager. (H/T to @insidecharmcity for the tweet ) Uber is giving the traditional taxi/limo business -- and regulators -- heartburn in cities across the country, as the company uses smartphone apps to connect with customers who are looking for rides. The company was covered in the Wall Street Journal today for trying to launch a yellow taxi cab-hailing app in New York City, but it was rebuffed by regulators there.

From the line at Zeke's Coffee beneath the Jones Falls Expressway Sunday morning, Misty Letz was doling out hugs and Christmas tidings. "Saddest day of the year," she said before reaching across the counter to embrace a barista. Letz had risen early to cram in a final trip to the Baltimore Farmers' Market before it closed its 36th season and left her and more than 5,000 other patrons without their weekly fix of fresh produce, treats and community. "You get to know these people," said Letz, 50. "I'll miss them.

The Orioles will return from the winter meetings still needing a power bat, but it's hard to tell whether Dan Duquette continues to believe that. He's talking up free-agent acquisition Conor Jackson as if he can come in and fill that role, but Jackson doesn't figure to be an impact player in the American League East. Though Duquette had success with some unorthodox acquisitions last season, his love for low-cost reclamation projects and his confidence in unproven talent could set Orioles fans up for a disappointing 2013 season.