Tuesday, June 30, 2009

NBC5 news has a big day in DFW ratings

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Mon., June 29 )

By Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

NBC5's usual early morning news wins were sugared Monday with an uncommon sweep of the 10 p.m. local newscast wars.

Add a doubleheader win at 6 p.m. and that's close to a grand slam for the Peacock, which pulled up a competitive second at 5 p.m. to Fox4.

NBC5 had a rare but relatively slim 9:45 to 10 p.m. lead-in advantage from NBC's preceding Dateline, which regurgitated Martin Bashir's 2003 look inside Michael Jackson's Neverland. It drew 199,290 D-FW viewers in the final 15 minutes, with NBC5 newscast then movin' on up a bit to 205,933 viewers.

The Peacock also won at 10 p.m. among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. WFAA8, the usual late night champ, ran a close second in both measurements.

NBC5 makes its own bed in the early mornings without any help from pre-dawn lead-ins. It again won at 6 a.m., but in close three-way races with Fox4 and WFAA8. A pair of more comfortable 6 p.m. wins made it a signature local news day for the Peacock.

Fox4's twin wins at 5 p.m. are starting to become the norm, but NBC5 is also in the hunt. WFAA8, with mostly dismal summertime ratings from the preceding Oprah Winfrey Show, has faded to a virtual non-factor in a time slot it used to dominate when Oprah ruled the late afternoon roost.

Among 25-to-54-year-olds, WFAA8 barely registered a pulse Monday, drawing just 15,177 viewers in this age range to finish fifth at 5 p.m. behind Fox4, NBC5, CBS11 and KDAF33's repeat of According to Jim. An in-newscast test of the ShamWow -- with WFAA8 essentially ripping off Steve Noviello's longstanding Deal or Dud segments on Fox4 -- failed to improve the station's ratings picture.

Elsewhere in prime-time, the sinking Texas Rangers' home loss to the onrushing Los Angeles Angels drew 112,931 total viewers on Fox Sports Southwest. That was a bit better than the 99,645 viewers tuned to Fox's competing two-hour reprise of an American Idol performance edition featuring Michael Jackson songs.

Pegasus News content partner - UncleBarky.com

Check out Uncle Barky's blog for his review of the new HBO show Hung.

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