Monday, June 1, 2009

Jay Leno bulks up with big DFW audience for last Tonight Show

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., May 29-31)

By Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Jay Leno's goodnight to Tonight racked up Friday's biggest D-FW audience, more than doubling the crowd for NBC5's preceding 10 p.m. newscast.

Keeping his ample chin up while preparing for a fall prime-time debut, Leno drew 305,578 viewers in squelching competition from WFAA8's combo of ABC's Nightline (79,716 viewers) and the syndicated The Insider (66,430).

Friday's second most-watched program, the Lakers' closeout of the Nuggets in Game 6 of their championship series, averaged 245,791 viewers on ESPN.

Leno also did big business with advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds, drawing 142,613 viewers in this age range. The Lakers-Nuggets game was close behind with 132,889 viewers to rank as Friday's No. 2 attraction in the 18-to-49 demographic.

On Sunday afternoon, the first-place Texas Rangers' home loss to Oakland averaged more total viewers than Fort Worth's Colonial golf tournament, which ended in a playoff.

Rangers-A's drew 112,931 viewers overall, peaking at 166,075. The Colonial had an average of 86,353 viewers, with a 15-minute increment high of 132,860. As previously reported on unclebarky.com, the Rangers announced a new five-year deal Friday with TXA21, which will present 25 Friday night games per season, beginning in 2010.

NBC's prime-time Sunday night telecast of the Red Wings-Penguins Stanley Cup faceoff averaged 53,144 viewers in D-FW.

In Friday's local news derby, CBS11 took the 10 p.m. competition in total viewers while NBC5 won among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

The Peacock again swept the 6 a.m. Nielsens while Fox4 did likewise at 6 p.m.

Fox4 also won at 5 p.m. with 25-to-54-year-olds, and tied with NBC5 for first place in total viewers.

In a rarity, WFAA8 recorded no local newscast wins. Its best showing was a second place tie at 10 p.m. in total viewers.

Pegasus News content partner - UncleBarky.com

Check out Uncle Barky's blog for a look back to when WFAA 8 actually had end credits on their newscast.

See more stories in:

• Media > Television