Conan paces NBC to rare decent night in DFW ratings

by Ed Bark of of UncleBarky.com

Conan O'Brien's second Tonight Show fell half a rating point from the first but continued to dominate David Letterman's Late Show on a night when NBC also made a little noise in prime-time.

Tuesday's Tonight drew 172,718 D-FW viewers, down from 205,933 for O'Brien's opening night. Letterman pulled in second with 86,359 viewers, up from Monday's 73,073.

O'Brien also called the tune with advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, pulling in 84,271 Tuesday opposite Letterman's 29,171. On Monday, the score was 110,201 to 32,412.

In prime-time, the second dollop of NBC's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here drew 99,645 total viewers in finishing a distant second to CBS' NCIS repeat (265,720 viewers). But in the measurement that matters most to NBC -- 18-to-49-year-olds -- I'm A Celebrity topped the 7 p.m. standings.

The Peacock ran second in both measurements at 8 p.m. with its Inside the Obama White House special, anchored and reported by Brian Williams.

At 9 p.m., NBC's season finale of Law & Order: SVU had the network's largest audience of the night -- 232,505 total viewers. That was good enough to edge CBS' 48 Hrs. Mystery (225,862 viewers) before the two shows traded places among 18-to-49-year-olds.

The Texas Rangers' lopsided road loss to the Yankees on MY27 averaged 99,645 total viewers.

In local news derby results, NBC5 and WFAA8 tied for first at 10 p.m. in total viewers while the Peacock won outright among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. Interestingly, NBC5 went with daytime anchors Brian Curtis and Kristi Nelson at 10 p.m. while rival stations all had their regular late night duos in place.

NBC as usual swept the 6 a.m. ratings, with WFAA8 falling to fourth place in both measurements.

WFAA8 rebounded to run the table at 5 p.m. and also had the most total viewers at 6 p.m. CBS11 broke through for a rare 6 p.m. win among 25-to-54-year-olds.