Smallish crowd watches Cowboys’ pre-season closer in Dallas-Fort Worth

by Ed Bark of of UncleBarky.com

The mistake-ridden Cowboys' pre-season finale, flexing about as much star power as a Cheri Oteri roast on Comedy Central, had diminishing returns on CBS11 Friday night.

Dallas' 35-31 win at Minnesota's non-descript Metrodome averaged 438,438 D-FW viewers, with a peak audience of 478,296. The previous week's "dress rehearsal" against San Francisco at Jerry's Palace averaged 684,229 viewers with a high of 850,304.

Still, the Cowboys blew out everything else on the start of a four-day holiday weekend. That included Friday night's competing Texas Rangers win at Baltimore, which had 53,144 viewers.

In other weekend football action, Oklahoma's crushing loss to BYU, also at Jerry's Palace, drew a very nice-sized 259,077 viewers Saturday night on ESPN. Over on ABC, the competing Alabama-Virginia Tech game (won by 'Bama) averaged 152,789 viewers.

Monday's Labor Day MDA telethon, shown locally on NBC5, averaged 19,929 viewers from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. before giving way to pro golf. The telethon returned from 5 to 6 p.m., drawing 33,215 viewers. A 6:30 to 7 p.m. wrapup, with host Jerry Lewis again singing his signature "You'll Never Walk Alone," had 26,572 viewers before a 7 p.m. episode of NBC's Law & Order: Criminal Intent jumped to 99,645 viewers.

In local news derby results, NBC5 and WFAA8 tied at 10 p.m. in total viewers Friday, with CBS11 still with the Cowboys until 10:17 p.m. The Peacock won outright among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 had a big day at 6 a.m., running the table against runnerup NBC5.

WFAA8 ran first with total viewers at 6 p.m., with Fox4 again on top among 25-to-54-year-olds. CBS11's news was preempted by a Cowboys' Countdown special.

Fox4 also won at 5 p.m. in the 25-to-54 demographic while NBC5 had the total viewers gold.

All four stations "threw out" their Labor Day local newscasts, opting for holiday designations that render those ratings inoperative.