Big bounce back for CBS11’s latenight news in Dallas/Fort Worth ratings

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

It usually works the other way around, with CBS11's 10 p.m. newscasts slipping from the oft-bountiful lead-ins provided by its 9 p.m. network shows.

Tuesday was distinctly different. Inheriting a dinky audience from another of CBS' newly implanted Medium reruns, the station trampolined at 10 p.m. with nearly triple the audience in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Aberration or not, it had to give the competition at least a slight shiver as the fall season nears.

Medium, which will move to Friday nights at 8 p.m. next month, drew just 73,073 D-FW viewers from 9:45 to 10 p.m. CBS11's late night newscast then improved markedly to 186,004 viewers to tie WFAA8 for second place just one-tenth of a rating point behind NBC5 (192,647 viewers).

The Peacock, however, had an overwhelming lead-in advantage from the last 15 minutes of NBC's America's Got Talent, which furnished the 10 p.m. newscast with 292,292 viewers.

Even more impressively, CBS11 won at 10 p.m. with 25-to-54-year-olds, inheriting 33,388 from Medium before vaulting to 91,059. NBC, with quadruple the lead-in from Talent (133,553 viewers in the 25-to-54 age range), ran a close second at 10 p.m. with 84,988 viewers of the 25-to-54 persuasion.

Talent again controlled the 8 to 10 p.m. slot with an overall average of 298,935 total viewers while also winning easily among 18-to-49-year-olds, the favored advertiser audience for entertainment programming.

CBS' ever-resilient NCIS took the 7 p.m. golds with a repeat episode. ABC's third night of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire sagged to third at that hour in total viewers and finished fourth (behind Fox's Hell's Kitchen) with 18-to-49-year-olds.

In the other four-way other local news derby results, Fox4 edged usual frontrunner NBC5 in total viewers, with the two stations tying for the top spot among 25-to-54-year-olds. WFAA8 continued to have serious ratings problems, running fourth in both measurements.

WFAA8 had its only win Tuesday at 6 p.m. in total viewers, with Fox4 finishing first among 25-to-54-year-olds. NBC5 swept the 5 p.m. Nielsens.