AFC championship game gives a boost to CBS

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., Jan. 19-21)

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Sunday night's down-to-the-last-seconds AFC championship game peaked at 875,840 homes in its final quarter-hour (9 to 9:15 p.m.) after doubling the audience for ABC's Desperate Housewives from 8 to 9 p.m.

Overall, CBS' telecast of the Indianapolis Colts-New England Patriots contest averaged 604,520 homes in D-FW. Those aren't Cowboys numbers, but that's still a blockbuster.

Fox's one-sided daytime game between the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints did almost as well with a 24.4 rating (580,720 homes). It peaked at 678,300 homes between 4:30 and 4:45 p.m.

The games had huge male deliveries among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds. Here's a look at the audience high-points with both sexes in this demographic:

Colts-Patriots

897,000 men between 9 and 9:15 p.m.

585,000 women between 9 and 9:15 p.m.

Bears-Saints

726,000 men between 4:30 and 4:45 p.m.

315,000 women in four different dayparts.

Here's another gender bender. Desperate Housewives averaged 387,000 women in the 18-to-49 demo from 8 to 9 p.m. DH drew just 165,000 males in that same age group. Or as some might put it -- girlymen.

In Friday's local news derby, NBC5 took the 10 p.m. cup in total homes while Belo8 placed an infrequent first with 25-to-54-year-olds, the key advertiser target for news programming.

The Peacock won the 6 a.m. competition in both ratings measurements, as did Belo8 at 5 p.m. The 6 p.m. honors were split, with Belo8 finishing first in homes and NBC5 on top among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Over on Uncle Barky's site, Ed talks to Paula Abdul, who blamed recent interview behavior on technical difficulties.