Throwaway pre-season football game runs up prime-time score in Dallas-Fort Worth ratings

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Miami's less than scintillating 10-6 win over Tampa Bay ruled the prime-time roost Thursday, averaging 239,148 viewers on Fox.

No matter how meaningless or boring the game, pro football just can't be beat in D-FW.

So Miami's less than scintillating 10-6 win over Tampa Bay ruled the prime-time roost Thursday, averaging 239,148 viewers on Fox while also drawing the lion's share of advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds.

The next biggest attraction, CBS' 9 p.m. repeat of The Mentalist, had 166,075 total viewers but drew barely one-fourth as many 18-to-49-year-olds in that hour.

ABC again played dead with twin reruns of Grey's Anatomy and a Private Practice chaser. The "audience" for the latter rerun -- 39,858 total viewers -- put WFAA8's 10 p.m. newscast in another quarry-sized hole. It almost dug out, trampolining to 199,290 viewers in finishing a close second to CBS11 (212,576 viewers), which also improved on its lead-in audience.

WFAA8 prevailed at 10 p.m. among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. In that key measurement, CBS11 slid to fourth place despite again upping its audience from the Mentalist lead-in.

NBC5 again ran the table at 6 a.m., notching a pair of wins for the fifth straight weekday. The Peacock also swept the 5 p.m. Nielsens, where WFAA8's woes continued. The ABC station ran an out-of-the-money fourth in both ratings measurements.

WFAA8 rebounded at 6 p.m. with a win in total viewers. But Fox4 notched its fifth straight weekday win with 25-to-54-year-olds.

In daytime action, the Rangers' impressive afternoon road victory against the Yankees played to a largely empty house, averaging just 33,125 total viewers on Fox Sports Southwest. It was outdrawn by several daytime soaps.