Wednesday, August 6, 2008

America’s Got Talent still brings in DFW viewers

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., Aug. 5)

By Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Another two-hour edition of NBC's America's Got Talent muscled up in prime-time Tuesday while a near-miraculous event occurred in the early morning news Nielsens.

Talent wiped out competing programming from 8 to 10 p.m., drawing 182,670 D-FW homes and also dominating the ratings among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds (116,676).

At 7 p.m., a repeat of CBS' NCIS was prime-time's biggest overall draw in total homes (202,155). But most of its audience again had a decidedly gray tint. Among 18-to-49-year-olds, NCIS slid to fourth in its timeslot with just 50,454 viewers in that key demo. ABC's competing Wipeout comfortably led the 18-to-49 parade with 104,062.

Tuesday otherwise dawned on a jarring note for WFAA8's May sweeps-winning Daybreak, which ran fourth at 6 a.m. in both total homes and among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. Yes, this means that CBS11's perennially fourth-place waker-upper nipped WFAA8 in both measurements.

It's repeatedly been said here that this is only the summer and early morning viewing habits are skewed more than most by vacations and school-closings. But my recollection is that CBS11 hasn't outdrawn WFAA8 in both ratings measurements since unclebarky.com inaugurated these snapshots in September, 2006. Is it possible that viewers are cooling on co-anchor Cynthia Izaguirre and the station's heavy promotional campaign on her behalf? It at least bears watching as the fall season creeps closer.

Tuesday's overall 6 a.m. victor, NBC5, won comfortably in both ratings face-offs over runnerup Fox4. The total homes gap between first and fourth place was 46,277.

The Peacock also prevailed at 10 p.m. with 25-to-54-year-olds, but WFAA8 won in total homes, with CBS11 taking second.

WFAA8 had a much better time of it at 5 and 6 p.m., running the table at those hours.

Pegasus News content partner - UncleBarky.com

Check out Uncle Barky's blog for his thoughts on the "funny" Obama and McCain ads airing with Last Comic Standing.

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