Sports take over DFW television sets

The Stars put Anaheim on ice while the Mavericks melted down in New Orleans.

And the Rangers? More ick-poo baseball left them swept in Boston. Let's go to the ratings stat sheets.

At home Sunday night, the Stars at long last advanced to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in a prime-time outing on Fox Sports Southwest. D-FW hasn't yet to warmed to hockey, though, even if temperatures are slowly rising. An average of 38,970 homes had the game in tune, with those numbers peaking at 77,939 homes in the final 15 minutes.

Friday's late night Game 5 loss, in Anaheim on MY27, averaged 77,939 homes for the entire matchup, with a high of 99,860 between 10:45 and 11 p.m. It still helps to be on free TV. High-definition would be nice, too, especially with hockey. C'mon, FSS, get in the game.

Viewers had two choices Saturday night when the Mavs met the Hornets and left hanging their heads. The conventional analog telecast on TXA21 averaged 129,087 homes, peaking at 163,185. ESPN's high-definition presentation drew 86,132 homes, with a high mark of 131,522.

The Rangers' dispiriting three game series at Fenway Park opened Friday night with a dinky 21,920 homes on FSS. Saturday night's game, also on FSS, built a bit to 31,663 homes. Sunday afternoon's closer on MY27 had 68,197 homes. The Lakers-Nuggets NBA playoff game on ABC averaged 112,038 D-FW homes after beginning opposite the closing innings of the Rangers' latest loss.

In Sunday's prime-time entertainment results, ABC's season finale of Oprah's Big Give topped all competing attractions from 7 to 8 p.m. with 185,106 homes. ABC also cleaned up with time slot-winning performances from new episodes of Desperate Housewives (211,897 homes) and Brothers & Sisters (168,056 homes).

On Friday night, a Dale Hansen Mavericks special on WFAA8 drew 53,583 homes to run a distant second at 6:30 p.m. opposite CBS11's Wheel of Fortune (165,621 homes). Hansen did outdraw two of ABC's prime-time shows, though -- a rerun of Desperate Housewives (43,841 homes) and a new edition of the big money game show Duel (34,098 homes).

Advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds mostly looked away, though. The Hansen special ran a cellar-dwelling seventh with those viewers while also trailing DH and Duel in that demographic.

The local news derby Nielsen saw WFAA8 warming up at 10 p.m. for the May "sweeps," which start Thursday. It again took the late night golds in both total homes and with 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 ran first at 6 a.m. in total homes while tying WFAA8 among 25-to-54-year-olds. In the latter race, third-place NBC5 ran just a hair behind the two frontrunners while CBS11 again lagged.

WFAA8 won at 5 p.m. in both measurements and also took the 6 p.m. contest in total homes. Fox4 had a paper-thin edge over WFAA8 in the 6 p.m. battle for 25-to-54-year-olds.