DFW viewers lapping up college and pro hoops

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Saturday's NCAA hoops coverage pummeled pro golf on NBC and a NASCAR race on ABC. Sunday's Southern Cal blowout of Texas attracted more homes locally than Donald Trump's The Apprentice.

College and pro hoops filled the air over the weekend, with the NCAA tournament perking up a bit and the Dallas Mavericks scoring on broadcast TV but bricking it on cable.

Friday night's Mavs-Boston Celtics game, carried only on Fox Sports Southwest, drew a scrawny 83,300 homes in falling short of the Texas-New Mexico tournament matchup on CBS11 (116,620).

On Sunday afternoon, though, ABC's telecast of a gritty Mavs win over the Detroit Pistons snared 154,700 homes to handily outpoint the Texas-Southern Cal game (128,250). That's the difference between full availability on broadcast TV and appreciably less than 100 percent penetration via cable or satellite.

Saturday's NCAA hoops coverage ruled the ratings from noon to 9 p.m., pummeling pro golf on NBC and a NASCAR race on ABC. And Sunday's Southern Cal blowout of Texas attracted more homes locally than Donald Trump's The Apprentice.

In perspective, though, Friday's 10 p.m. newscast on Belo8 easily made a better showing (8.2 Nielsen rating/195,160 homes) than any of the weekend's NCAA games -- or Sunday's Mavericks win for that matter.

Belo8's Friday late night news won handily in total homes and tied for first with NBC5 among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

The Peacock comfortably ran first in homes at 6 a.m., but Fox4 won with almost equal ease in the 25-54 demo.

Belo8 won in both measurements at 5 p.m. and also had a 6 p.m. victory in homes. NBC5 inched into first place at 6 p.m. among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Ed has introduced a new page to his site called Back Channels, which highlights stories from the past 25 years or so.