Idol and weather-fueled newscasts call the tune in DFW

by Ed Bark of of UncleBarky.com

A stay-at-home night helped kick American Idol's ratings up a notch before Fox4's 9 p.m. newscast again put competing network programming on ice.

Idol had 684,239 D-FW viewers on Fox, a sharp upturn from the 478,296 who watched on Inauguration night a week ago. CBS' competing NCIS held strong, too, drawing 471,653 viewers opposite Idol.

Fox's Fringe then plummeted in the 8 p.m. hour, dropping to third with 219,219 viewers against CBS' frontrunning repeat of The Mentalist (378,651 viewers) and the second hour of NBC's The Biggest Loser (358,722 viewers). But Loser had a substantial edge in that hour among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds.

Fox4's weather-infused 9 p.m. newscast dug out of the Fringe valley despite early technical problems caused by power outages at the downtown Dallas mothership. For the second straight night it led the 9 p.m. hour in both total viewers (418,509) and 18-to-49-year-olds (230,126), with CBS' new episode of Without A Trace running second in both measurements.

"The 33"'s 9 p.m. local newscast had 59,787 total viewers, improving on a lead-in from the CW network's incompatible Privileged (39,858 viewers).

WFAA8 took over at 10 p.m. pulling in 411,866 viewers despite little lead-in help from ABC's Prime Time: What Would You Do? (a third place 172,718 viewers from 9:45 to 10 p.m.).

WFAA8 also won comfortably at 10 p.m. among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Tuesday's early morning parade again was led by NBC5, which swept the 6 a.m. competitions. The Peacock's haul of 169,977 viewers in the 25-to-54 age range was up from 103,200 on Monday, when it also led the field.

WFAA8 ran the table at 6 p.m. and also won at 5 p.m. in total viewers. NBC5 had the 5 p.m. edge among 25-to-54-year-olds.