NBC’s The Wanted goes unwanted in Dallas/Fort Worth

The Wanted drew just 66,430 D-FW viewers to run fifth in the 9 p.m. hour.

If NBC should have aired Wanted instead of The Wanted.

The controversy over NBC's terrorist-chasing The Wanted prompted an oversized yawn among D-FW viewers, who preferred to watch human lab rats grope in the dark.

Presented under the Dateline banner and criticized as a globe-hopping version of that program's "To Catch a Predator" series, The Wanted drew just 66,430 D-FW viewers to run fifth in the 9 p.m. hour.

CBS' CSI: Miami rerun as usual led the 9 p.m. parade with 192,647 viewers, followed by the premiere of ABC's Dating in the Dark (132,860 viewers), Fox Sports Southwest's final hour of the Texas Rangers win over Boston (119,574 viewers) and Fox4's 9 p.m. local newscast (86,359 viewers).

Dating in the Dark moved to No. 1 among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, with CSI: Miami, the Rangers game, Fox4's newscast and The Wanted following in order.

In the late night talk wars, CBS' Late Show with David Letterman thumped NBC's The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien in total viewers while also winning comfortably among 18-to-49-year-olds, which has been a rarity. But both network talkers were beaten in the 18-to-49 demographic by Fox4's syndicated combo of TMZ and Beyond Twisted.

Also of note: The 33's 9 p.m. local newscast had more total viewers -- 19,929 -- than the 8 to 9 p.m. hour of TXA21's "First in Prime" news (6,643 viewers). But those are both pretty pitiful showings in a D-FW viewing area of roughly 6.5 million potential TV watchers. The 33 also outdrew TXA21 among 18-to-49-year-olds.

In the four-way local news derby results, WFAA8 again won comfortably at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and with 25-to-54-year-olds, the preferred advertiser target audience for news programming.

NBC5 had twin wins as usual at 6 a.m, with Fox4 a competitive second and WFAA8 and CBS11 far back. The 7 to 9 a.m. portion of Fox4's Good Day then beat the three network morning shows, with a notably comfy margin among 25-to-54-year-olds.

WFAA8 ran the table at 6 p.m. while the 5 p.m. golds were split by NBC5 in total viewers and Fox4 in the 25-to-54 age range.