Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Few in DFW see T.O.’s waterloo on The Superstars

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., June 23)

By Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Former Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens escaped much attention in D-FW Tuesday night for his inept one-and-done athletic prowess on the 90-minute premiere of ABC's The Superstars.

Teamed with lippy, hard-edged supermodel Joanna Krupa, T.O. capsized kayaks, got ensnared in an obstacle course net, pouted and sustained heavy-duty trash talk from his teammate before getting sent home. You can read our blow-by-blow account here.

The whole shebang drew a paltry 59,787 viewers in the 7 to 8:30 p.m. slot. It couldn't even outpoint NBC's second-to-last episode of I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here, which had 86,359 viewers in the 7 p.m. hour before the Peacock's two-hour season premiere of America's Got Talent ballooned to 225,862 viewers. That was good enough to push aside all competition in both total viewers and advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds.

ABC had a dismal Tuesday overall, with new episodes of its quite funny Better Off Ted (39,858 total viewers) and Prime Time: Family Secrets (59,787) also running distant fourths from 8:30 to 10 p.m. In contrast, first-run episodes of TNT's HawthoRNe (106,288 viewers) and Saving Grace (99,645 viewers) fared appreciably better in the 8 to 10 p.m. slot than anything ABC could offer.

WFAA8's 10 p.m. newscast nonetheless rallied from ABC's dismal lead-in programming to tie for first place in total viewers with NBC5 and CBS11. Each station hauled in 166,075. WFAA8 then won outright with 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

NBC5 continued to score at 6 a.m., where the station once again ran the table.

Fox4 likewise swept the 5 p.m. ratings and WFAA8 took a pair of golds at 6 p.m.

Pegasus News content partner - UncleBarky.com

Check out Uncle Barky's blog for his review of the new NBC series The Philanthropist.

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