One-day somersault for early morning news ratings in Dallas-Fort Worth

by Ed Bark of of UncleBarky.com

Lazarus rose from the dead Wednesday -- hey kids, that's a biblical reference -- when WFAA8 topped the 6 a.m. ratings for the first time since March 30th.

The ABC station's Daybreak had tied NBC5 for the lead in total viewers on June 10th. But this is the program's first stand-alone victory in more than five months.

NBC5, the Eggs Benedict of the early morning ratings race during that period, slipped to a second place tie with Fox4. Each station had 79,716 viewers, trailing WFAA8's 86,359. CBS11 pulled in fourth with 53,144 viewers.

The Nielsen numbers played out a bit differently among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. Fox4 and NBC shared the lead with 48,565 viewers in that age group, with WFAA8 close behind (45,530 viewers) and CBS11 within shouting distance (33,388 viewers).

WFAA8 added a sweep of the 10 p.m. newscasts to its booty. And it won at 6 p.m. in total viewers while tying Fox4 for the top spot with 25-to-54-year-olds.

NBC5 ran the table at 5 p.m., where WFAA8 again limped in with a pair of fourth place finishes.

Wednesday's prime-time ratings of course were paced by NBC's America's Got Talent. Its results show drew a league-leading 232,505 total viewers in the 8 p.m. hour while also dominating that time period among 18-to-49-year-olds, the key advertiser target audience for entertainment programming.

Fox's 8 p.m. repeat of Glee managed 73,073 total viewers opposite Talent. That at least was good enough to beat ABC's incredibly lame Crash Course (the night's least-watched Big 4 network program with a piddling 53,144 viewers).

Over on Fox Sports Southwest, the resilient Rangers' third straight home win against Toronto averaged 119,574 viewers locally. Its closing 45 minutes -- from 9 to 9:45 p.m. -- beat all competing network programming with 172,718 viewers.

Check out Uncle Barky's blog for his thoughts on Tony Romo possibly romancing a CW33 sports reporter.

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