Sunday’s NBA All-Star game a big hit in DFW

by Ed Bark of of UncleBarky.com

Consider Sunday night's NBA All-Star game a big hit in D-FW despite lip-syncing Wayne Newton's best efforts to drive viewers away with a dreadful pre-game show.

Originating from Las Vegas on cable's TNT, the game drew an impressive 192,780 homes to place second in prime-time behind only ABC's lineup of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters.

But among advertiser-coveted younger viewers -- 18-to-49 and 18-to-34-year-olds -- the All-Stars were outpointed only by Desperate Housewives. Consider the fearsome whipping taken by Donald Trump's once potent The Apprentice, which the NBA dunked on all fronts in D-FW from 8 to 9 p.m.

Total Homes

All-Star Game -- 188,020

The Apprentice -- 88,060

18-to-49-Year-Olds

All-Star Game -- 208,500

The Apprentice -- 69,000

18-to-34-Year-Olds

All-Star Game -- 108,037

The Apprentice -- 33,737

Friday's local TV news wars saw Belo8 win at 10 p.m. for the eighth consecutive weeknight, this time by a comfy margin of 66,640 homes. With eight nights left, Belo8 has a thin but widening margin over the Peacock, which has a late night news winning streak dating to February 2002.

Belo8 also edged NBC5 among 25-to-54-year-olds, but is still running second with the target advertiser audience for news programming.

Fox4 took the 6 a.m. bouts in both measurements in what looks like a down-to-the-wire battle with NBC5 in homes. Belo8 is still very much in the race among 25-to-54-year-olds.

The 5 and 6 p.m. news battles again were won on all fronts by Belo8, which has them all but sewn up.

Over on Uncle Barky's site, Ed says Belo8 sports anchor Dale Hansen invariably says what he pleases, and damn the big cheeses.