Evergreen Dateline drives prime-time numbers in Dallas/Fort Worth

by Ed Bark of of UncleBarky.com

Its "To Catch a Predator" days apparently are over -- and deservedly so.

But NBC's long-running Dateline still has enough pulling power to make competing programs sing the summertime blues. Monday's 9 p.m. edition, featuring -- what else? -- a murder investigation, had prime-time's biggest audience with 205,933 D-FW viewers. That handily beat the competition from Fox4's local newscast (126,217 viewers), CBS' usually potent CSI: Miami rerun (112,931) and ABC's repeat of Castle (99,645).

Dateline also cruised with advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, drawing 106,960 in squashing runnerup Fox4's news (45,377).

ABC's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, in the midst of its 10th anniversary run, took the 7 p.m. hour with 152,789 total viewers. It fell to second with 18-to-49-year-olds, though, behind Fox's House reprise. CBS' repeat sitcom combo of Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory again won from 8 to 9 p.m. in both ratings measurements.

In the daily local news derby, WFAA8 bucked the skimpy lead-in from Castle to win in total viewers at 10 p.m. But NBC5 ran first among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

The Peacock again swept the 6 a.m. ratings, with WFAA8 slipping into the silver medal slot by edging Fox4 in both measurements.

NBC5 continued to prosper with twin wins at 5 p.m. The 6 p.m. golds were split by WFAA8 in total viewers and Fox4 with 25-to-54-year-olds.