Opening day, schmopening day: DFW viewers avoid Rangers opener

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

A new episode of CBS' CSI: Miami and another round of ABC's Dancing with the Stars paced Monday's prime-time ratings while the Texas Rangers' traditional opening day loss to a West Coast team was pretty much a whiff in the Nielsens, too.

CSI led all comers (270,352 D-FW homes), with the 90-minute Dancing close behind at 245,996. The CBS crime drama also topped Monday's field among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds.

The Rangers' late afternoon/early evening game against Seattle drew 47,198 homes on Fox Sports Southwest, which followed with the Dallas Mavericks' late night survival win against the Clippers (60,890 homes).

Taking advantage of a bountiful CSI lead-in, CBS11's 10 p.m. newscast kept a good share of it to score a rare win in total homes against WFAA8. The two stations tied with 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 won comfortably at 6 a.m. in total homes but WFAA8 retaliated with a solid first-place finish in the 25-to-54 demo. The ABC station again ran the table at 5 and 6 p.m.

CBS11's 6 p.m. newscast had a particularly tough time with the key 25-to-54-year-old audience, drawing a sub-puny 23,556 of 'em. That put it sixth among all broadcast stations, and ridiculously far behind frontrunning WFAA8 (161,948).