Ups and downs for Marriage Ref in Dallas-Fort Worth ratings

Jerry Seinfeld's new show couldn't pull in all age ranges, but scored with those 18-49.

NBC's time slot premiere of Jerry Seinfeld's The Marriage Ref emerged as its most-watched show of the night while still drawing less than half the audience for CBS' competing The Mentalist.

Ref, sneak-previewed in the midst of the Olympics' closing ceremonies Sunday night, drew 196,803 D-FW viewers in its first outing at 9 p.m. Thursday. Mentalist doubled down with 413,364 viewers while ABC's runnerup Private Practice managed 210,375. Fox4's local newscast ran fourth (122,153 viewers).

Marriage Ref fared considerably better, though, with advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds, drawing 123,941 viewers in this age range to finish just behind Mentalist (127,202).

Fox's 7 p.m. American Idol results show cruised to another easy win in both ratings measurements, with its 434,323 total viewers the night's high point.

NBC's special "One-Hour Office Baby Event," in which Pam and Jim had a girl, ran a distant third in the 8 p.m. hour with 176,444 viewers. CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (352,888 viewers) edged ABC's Grey's Anatomy (339,315 viewers) for the top spot in that slot.

Grey's dominated the 18-to-49-year-old numbers, though, with The Office a close third behind CSI.

In late night, Jay Leno's Tonight Show again bested David Letterman's Late Show in both ratings barometers. Leno hasn't lost to Letterman in D-FW since he returned to late night on Monday.

In local news derby results, CBS11 and WFAA8 split the golds at 10 p.m. CBS11 won in total viewers while WFAA8 ran first with 25-to-54-year-olds, the favored target audience for news programming.

NBC5 continued its winning ways at 6 a.m. by topping both ratings measurements. The Peacock also won at 5 p.m. in total viewers.

WFAA8 paced the 6 p.m. Nielsens in total viewers, but Fox4 remained strong among 25-to-54-year-olds with wins at both 5 and 6 p.m.