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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., Oct. 28) -- World Series starts slow, gets ball rolling

By ED BARK
We live in a TV market where Wednesday night's Game 1 of a high-powered World Series couldn't beat a cartoon show in its first hour.

Specifically, NBC's Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Other Space beat Yankees-Phils from 7 to 7:30 p.m. before a rerun of the same special also prevailed in the 7:30 to 8 p.m. slot.

It was close, though. Game 1 had 166,075 D-FW viewers in its first half-hour, with Mutant Pumpkins nabbing 172,718. Yanks-Phils then inched up to 172,718 viewers from 7:30 to 8 p.m., but Mutant Pumpkins upped its game, too, to 186,004 viewers.

Lest you wonder, the Series did very well nationally, ranking as the most-watched Game 1 in five years with an average of 19.5 million viewers. But D-FW is becoming renowned as a stinko baseball market. How stinko? The 8 to 8:30 p.m. portion of the Series ran third to ABC's Modern Family and CBS' first half-hour of a Criminal Minds repeat.

Things finally picked up from there, with Yanks-Phils prevailing from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. while averaging 245,791 viewers overall.

Among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, the Series was outdrawn by ABC's The Middle and Cougar Town during the 8 to 9 p.m. hour.

In the last local news derbies before the four-week November sweeps, CBS11 won a downsized three-way 10 p.m. race in total viewers. But WFAA8 prevailed among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

NBC5 ran the table at 6 a.m., NBC did likewise at 5 p.m. and WFAA8 had the golds in the 6 p.m. newscast competitions.