Crime ‘n’ dance prance in Dallas-Fort Worth ratings

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., Oct. 14)

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

CBS and Fox split Wednesday's prime-time wealth before CBS11's 10 p.m. newscast cruised to another dominating win.

Fox's So You Think You Can Dance controlled the 7 p.m. hour with 132,860 D-FW viewers while also taking the gold with advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds.

CBS then super-sized that audience from 8 to 10 p.m. with 285,649 total viewers for Criminal Minds and 305,578 for CSI: NY. Both shows also won easily among 18-to-49-year-olds, with Fox's Glee taking the silver in both measurements in the 8 p.m. hour.

At 9 p.m., NBC's The Jay Leno Show perked up to second in total viewers while falling to third in the 18-to-49 demographic behind Fox4's local newscast.

That left NBC's Mercy and ABC's Eastwick as the night's biggest losers. The Peacock's first-year medical drama ran fourth in both ratings barometers at 7 p.m. And witchy newcomer Eastwick spooked WFAA8's 10 p.m. newscast with another bottom-rung finish at 9 p.m.

In a disheartening development, KERA13 drew a sub/sub-puny 2,657 total viewers from 9 to 10:30 p.m. for a standout American Masters profile of Joan Baez. Even worse, the program had "hashmarks" (no measurable audience) among 18-to-49-year-olds.

CBS11, with a strong tailwind from CSI: NY, dominated the 10 p.m. local news ratings in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Its 239,148 total viewers left runner-up WFAA8 (179,361 viewers) in another late night ditch. CBS11 ran even wilder with 25-to-54-year-olds, racking up 133,553 of 'em to second place WFAA8's 66,777.

In the other four-way local news competitions, NBC5 claimed two firsts at 6 a.m. in its continuing slugfest with arch rival Fox4. Both WFAA8 and CBS11 again ran well back, particularly among 25-to-54-year-olds.

WFAA8 muscled up at 5 and 6 p.m., though, uncommonly running the table with four golds.

At 5:30 p.m., The 33's fledgling local newscast managed a morale-tickling sixth-place tie with the CBS Evening News among 25-to-54-year-olds. The top 5 spots in that demographic were held by ABC's World News, the NBC Nightly News, Fox4's local news and, in a fourth place tie, TXA21's That '70s Show repeat and MY27's My Name Is Earl do-over.