Thursday, October 9, 2008

CBS surprisingly (and unsurprisingly) rules Wednesday DFW ratings

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., Oct. 8)

By Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Crime hours on CBS and Fox pinned ABC and NBC to the mat Wednesday night.

Bones put Fox on top in total homes at 7 p.m., but it couldn't close the deal among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds. Surprisingly, that crown went to CBS' sitcom combo of The New Adventures of Old Christine and the truly new Gary Unmarried.

CBS then bulldozed all comers from 8 to 10 p.m. with and CSI: NY, which breezed to first place finishes in both ratings measurements. CSI: NY had Wednesday's biggest haul with 263,045 D-FW homes.

ABC had dispiriting ratings returns for three second-year dramas whose first seasons were cut short by the writers' strike.

Pushing Daisies ran fourth at 7 p.m. in total homes (a meager 85,246) and landed in the same spot with 18-to-49-year-olds.

ABC's Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money both climbed into second place in total homes, but ran miles behind CBS' 8 to 10 p.m. partners in crime. Worse yet for Private Practice, it managed only a second-place tie with NBC's competing Biggest Loser in the key 18-to-49 demographic.

In the total homes Nielsens, Biggest Loser acted the part with a distant fourth place finish. It drew barely half the audience for Private Practice, hardly a juggernaut itself with 126,651 homes.

The Peacock's Knight Rider motored to the runnerup spot in total homes at 7 p.m., but stalled out in third place among 18-to-49-year-olds. At 9 p.m., NBC's Lipstick Jungle drew prime-time's smallest number of total homes (63,326) and also ran well out of the money in the 18-to-49 demo.

In the local news derby, WFAA8 again obliterated its rivals at 10 p.m. in both total homes and with 25-to-54-year-olds, the favored advertiser target audience for news programming.

The ABC station also ran the table at 5 and 6 p.m., but is still falling short in the early morning competition.

NBC5 took both 6 a.m. golds this time, knocking off Tuesday's champ, Fox4. WFAA8 ran third in total homes and improved to second place among 25-to-54-year-olds. WFAA8 topped the May "sweeps" in both ratings measurements, but will be hard-pressed to repeat in the looming November sweeps

The 7 to 9 a.m. portion of Fox4's Good Day as usual whipped the three network morning shows.

Pegasus News content partner - UncleBarky.com

Check out Uncle Barky's blog for his review of ABC's Life on Mars.

See more stories in:

• Media > Television