Thursday, June 25, 2009
Sickly ratings for ABC’s Obama health care Q&A in DFW
Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., June 24)
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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.

Pegasus News content partner - UncleBarky.com
Check out Uncle Barky's blog for his thoughts on David Letterman besting Conan O'Brien in the ratings.
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Comments
Steve Thurman Verified
Low ratings due to "Obama overload" kicking in, most likely. Or maybe ABC started looking too much like state-run TV. Thank God for ESPN and The Weather Channel.
4 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
boomking Anonymous
Oh, no stellar ratings in Texas? What a shocker there. Well, you guys may want to actually pay attention to this stuff, BECAUSE the healthcare system cost as it is today, thanks to Reagan and Bush, is skyrocketing in towns like McAllen and failing miserably. There's no way around that.
Oh and you want to talk about State Run Media? How about Fox News for the past 8 years and Tony Snow becoming WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY under Bush. What's worse? Having ABC air a 1 hr program about the biggest problem in America or having a Fox News Commentator literally be the voice of the White House?
Or maybe you still want to secede, so you guys can take care of your own healthcare problems. I'm sure that'll work out just great.
4 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
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