Anchor Oprah gives mini-boost to WFAA8’s 5 p.m. news numbers in Dallas-Fort Worth

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Mon., Oct. 12)

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

Viewers didn't exactly turn out in droves -- or even in multitudes. Still, Oprah Winfrey's stunt-anchoring of WFAA8's Monday 5 p.m. newscast gave a little push to the station's 25-to-54-year-old Nielsen ratings.

The station's ad hoc Oprah/Gloria Campos combo drew 139,508 total D-FW viewers to beat runner-up Fox4's 119,574. And among 25-to-54-year-olds, the targeted advertiser audience for news programming, WFAA8 had 66,777 viewers in again beating second place Fox4 (54,635).

On the previous Monday (Oct. 5th) WFAA8 and NBC5 tied for first in total viewers with 139,503 apiece. So no Oprah factor there, at least in terms of WFAA8's overall numbers.

But WFAA8 drew just 45,530 viewers in the 25-to-54 range, running second to NBC5's 63,741 on the previous Monday. That's a plus factor of 21,247 demographically desirable viewers for the Oprah gambit. Not huge but WFAA8 will take it.

The "Queen of Talk's" preceding talk show otherwise bombed Monday, drawing just 73,073 total viewers for an appearance by a contrite Mike Tyson. NBC5's First At Four local newscast led the way with 112,931 viewers, beating Fox4's Judge Judy doubleheader (86,359 and 106,288). Oprah likewise ran third among 25-to-54-year-olds.

In other local news derby results, CBS11 took the 10 p.m. gold in total viewers while WFAA8 ran first with 25-to-54-year-olds.

Fox4 swept the 6 a.m. news numbers and WFAA8 did likewise at 6 p.m.

Monday's prime-time Nielsens were paced in total viewers by ABC's two-hour Dancing with the Stars performance edition and CBS' CSI: Miami.

CSI also won easily with 18-to-49-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for entertainment programming. Dancing took the 7 p.m. hour in that key demographic before falling to third from 8 to 9 p.m. behind CBS' Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory and Fox's Lie to Me.

(Michael Irvin's listless bolero on Dancing netted him another bottom-rung finish on judges' scorecards. It again looks like curtains on Tuesday night's results show, and this time he deserves it. But low-scoring snowboarder Louie Vito is much shorter on name recognition and could still bail Irvin out in the viewer vote.)

NBC's The Jay Leno Show ran a distant fourth at 9 p.m with 18-to-49-year-olds and also held down that out-of-the-money spot in total viewers. The Peacock's preceding Heroes and Trauma also ran fourth across the board.