Thursday, July 31, 2008

So You Think You Can Dance draws “right” DFW viewers

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., July 30)

By Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Fox's So You Think You Can Dance continued to click with the "right" audience Wednesday night as Fort Worth's Joshua Allen made his bid for the show's Final Four.

Dance ran just third in total D-FW homes at 8 p.m., drawing 116,909 to place well behind CBS' frontrunning repeat of Criminal Minds (168,056 homes). But Dance again took the top spot with advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds (78,835), edging NBC's competing Baby Borrowers (75,682).

CBS also had the top overall attraction at 9 p.m. with its CSI: NY repeat, which sagged to fourth with 18-to-49-year-olds. ABC's Wife Swap won the first hour of prime-time in both measurements.

Fox's often torturously flamboyant Wendy Williams Show, getting a daytime tryout in just four markets (including D-FW), perked up a bit at 11 a.m. with a second place finish in total homes behind CBS11's combo of Jeopardy! and the first half-hour of The Young and the Restless.

The 18-to-49 Nielsens showed a near-photo finish for first place among Williams, the CBS11 twosome, ABC's All My Children and Ch. 21's Judge Mathis. All were separated by roughly one-tenth of a rating point (3,153 viewers).

In the local news derby, WFAA8 nipped CBS11 for first place in total homes, but dipped to third among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. NBC5 won that battle, with CBS11 close behind.

The Peacock won comfortably at 6 a.m. in both measurements. WFAA8 remained in a slump, so much so that CBS11 tied the ABC station for third place in total homes. That hasn't happened in forever and a day.

WFAA8 won the early morning May sweeps competition in both ratings measurements, but has seen its numbers swoon of late. A new day soon will dawn after lame-duck Daybreak co-anchor Justin Farmer heads for WSB-TV in Atlanta on a still undetermined date next month. Brad Hawkins, who's been co-anchoring WFAA8's weekend newscasts, then will join heavily promoted incumbent Cynthia Izaguirre for at least the rest of this year under the current plan.

The 6 p.m. news golds were shared by WFAA8 in total homes and Fox4 among 25-to-54-year-olds.

WFAA8 also won in total homes at 5 p.m. and shared first place with Fox4 in the 25-to-54 demo.

Pegasus News content partner - UncleBarky.com

Check out Uncle Barky's blog for his thoughts on KDAF's Victoria Snee's move to radio.

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