Sickly ratings for ABC’s Obama health care Q&A in DFW

by Ed Bark of of UncleBarky.com

This time he wasn't ratings gold -- at least not in D-FW.

ABC's one-hour health care Q&A with President Obama, dubbed a "glorified infomercial" by some Republicans, drew just 79,716 viewers in the 9 p.m. hour Wednesday.

That ranked it a sickly eighth, opposite competition from NBC's premiere of The Philanthropist (192,647 viewers); CBS' CSI: NY rerun (159,432); ESPN's closing hour of LSU's blowout of Texas in the College Baseball World Series (152,789); Univision's Don Francisco Live (119,5574); Fox Sports Southwest's Rangers-Diamondbacks game (106,288); Fox4's 9 p.m. local newscast (99,645) and two episodes of TBS' Meet the Browns (93,002 and 86,359). Somebody call an ambulance.

Accompanied in the White House East Room by ABC anchors Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer plus a cross-section of citizen inquisitors, Questions for the President: Prescription for America outdrew just two prime-time programs on the Big Four broadcast networks. ABC's preceding I Survived a Japanese Game Show had 66,430 viewers, as did CBS' 7:30 p.m. repeat of Gary Unmarried.

NBC again ruled the prime-time roost with America's Got Talent, the biggest overall draw with 265,720 viewers. But the finale of the Peacock's I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here ("won" by Lou Diamond Phillips), managed only 99,645 viewers in the 7 p.m. hour.

In Wednesday's local news derby, NBC5 won at 10 p.m. in total viewers while WFAA8 took the gold among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

At 6 a.m., NBC5 suffered a rare stumble, tying for first place with Fox4 in total viewers and finishing second to Fox4 among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Fox4 also came up big at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., sweeping those competitions in both ratings measurements.

Check out Uncle Barky's blog for his thoughts on David Letterman besting Conan O'Brien in the ratings.

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