Jeremy Lin, The Voice come up big in Dallas-Fort Worth ratings

Unfortunately for ABC, the next Mavs-Knicks game is on a Tuesday.

Jeremy Lin's Sunday afternoon debut on ABC's main stage, with the Dallas Mavericks as foils, emerged as D-FW's most-watched program over the weekend.

Local interest obviously played a big role, too, with the New York Knicks whipping Dallas down the stretch while Lin again wore the hero's mantle. The noon-starting game averaged 284,512 viewers with a peak crowd of 379,350 in the closing minutes.

On Sunday night, the two-hour season finale of PBS' Downton Abbey drew 162,578 viewers from 8 to 10 p.m. That was good enough to beat NBC's season premiere of The Celebrity Apprentice and ABC's soon to be grounded Pan Am. Advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds pretty much stayed away, though. Downton's 32,023 viewers in this key demographic trailed all programming on the Big Four broadcast networks as well as AMC's The Walking Dead (99,271). Mavs-Knicks led Sunday's 18-to-49 parade with 128,092 viewers.

NBC again enjoyed big returns from The Voice, which dominated Monday's 7 to 9 p.m. slot with 413,220 total viewers and likewise won handily among 18-to-49-year-olds.

The Peacock's Smash then fell to third place in the 9 p.m. hour with 176,127 total viewers while ABC's Castle won that slot with 270,964 viewers. Smash also took the bronze with 18-to-49-year-olds, trailing both Castle and CBS' Hawaii Five-0.

Despite its lead-in advantage, WFAA8's 10 p.m. newscast ran second behind CBS11 in total viewers Monday.

With seven weekdays remaining in the February "sweeps," CBS11 is all but assured of a total viewers win in the late night news wars over WFAA8, the defending November sweeps champ. But it's still a dogfight among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. CBS11 won Monday's 10 p.m. battle, nipping runner-up Fox4 while WFAA8 ran fourth.

But on Friday night, WFAA8 had a decisive win at 10 p.m. with 25-to-54-year-olds while tying CBS11 for the top spot in total viewers.

In other four-way local news derby results, the combatants all took a 6 a.m. holiday knee Monday in deference to President's Day. So those numbers don't count in the final tally.

But they played for keeps in the early evening hours, with Fox4 sweeping the 5 p.m. competitions and adding a 6 p.m. win with 25-to-54-year-olds. CBS11 ran first at 6 p.m. in total viewers.

On Friday, Fox4 and NBC5 shared first place at 6 a.m. in total viewers, with Fox4 notching a decisive win among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Fox4 ran the table at 5 p.m. and took the 6 p.m. gold with 25-to-54-year-olds. WFAA8 ran first at 6 p.m. in total viewers.