Crime stories again prevail on CBS, Fox in Thursday Dallas-Fort Worth ratings

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Bones, CSI, and The Mentalist all racked up big numbers.

Whodunit? Viewers still can't get enough nightly answers.

Fox's crime caper, a growingly popular Bones, led the 7 p.m. hour with a nice-sized 265,720 D-FW viewers, thumping ABC's runnerup FlashForward (152,789 viewers), more of a serial what-did-it?

CBS then took over with dominating numbers for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and The Mentalist. Each crimestopper drew 345,436 viewers while Fox/Fox4 fell from first to fourth with Fringe (86,359 viewers) and the nightly 9 p.m. local newscast (106,288 viewers).

Bones and CSI also won with advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds. But ABC's Private Practice took the 9 p.m. competition in that demographic, with Mentalist a close second.

NBC's one-hour wedding episode of The Office ran a competitive second at 8 p.m. among 18-to-49-year-olds while finishing third in total viewers ahead of the slumping Fringe. ABC's latest edition of The Jay Leno Show took the bronze in both measurements.

In local news derby results, CBS11 notched its fifth consecutive weeknight 10 p.m. win in total viewers, drawing 265,720. But its run of three straight firsts among 25-to-54-year-olds was stopped by WFAA8. The latter measurement is the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

NBC5 resumed its winning ways at 6 a.m. with a sweep over Fox4 while CBS11 had a rare big day at 6 p.m. Its newscast won outright in total viewers and tied Fox4 for first with 25-to-54-year-olds.

Fox4 comfortably ran the table at 5 p.m. The station also topped the 5:30 p.m. news numbers in both measurements, outdrawing the three network editions and The 33's fledgling local entry.