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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., June 5-7) -- NBA Finals, Triple Crown winner and more

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Game 2 of the NBA Finals, another overtime thriller, roared in Sunday’s prime-time ratings while the history-making Belmont Stakes also made a big ratings impression early Saturday evening.

Cleveland’s last-second upset win over Golden State, which ran for more than three hours and stretched to 10:18 p.m. on ABC, averaged 446,336 D-FW viewers and increased its audience in every full 15-minute segment measured by Nielsen Media Research. Yes, even the halftime audience kept the upswing going, with an eventual peak crowd of 676,478 viewers between 10 and 10:15 p.m.

The overall audience was up from the 404,492 for Game 1. Even better for the NBA and ABC, the 95-93 Cavaliers win Sunday night again drew more than half its numbers -- 236,535 -- from the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic. This bears repeating. No pro sports championship can equal the NBA Finals in terms of its pound-for-pound pulling power with 18-to-49-year-olds. The Super Bowl obviously draws many more, but generally less than half the overall total. This year’s down-to-the-wire Super Bowl, for instance, averaged 2,740,782 total viewers in D-FW, with under 50 percent -- 1,258,366 -- within the 18-to-49 motherlode.

Opposite Game 2 of the Finals, CBS’ three-hour Tony Awards telecast had 153,428 total viewers and 37,846 in the 18-to-49 demographic. The Tonys ran second to the NBA from 7 to 9 p.m. but were outdrawn in the final hour in both ratings measurements by Fox4’s 9 p.m. local newscast.

Sunday afternoon’s Texas Rangers game, a 4-3 loss at Kansas City, drew 97,636 total viewers on Fox Sports Southwest.

Let’s move to Saturday, where American Pharoah’s runaway win at the Belmont made him the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. Following the usual marathon buildup on NBC, the race was actually run between 5:52 and 5:54 p.m. In the 5:45 to 6 p.m. increment, the closest we can get to the precise viewing audience, the Belmont pulled in a very impressive 516,076 viewers. Not as impressive: it had 160,844 viewers in the 18-to-49 realm.

Saturday afternoon’s Rangers win required something of an archaeological dig to find it on Fox Sports 1 cable. The game managed 76,714 total viewers. NBC’s prime-time Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals averaged 139,480 total viewers and 47,307 in the 18-to-49 age range. But the audience was at its highest in both measurements in the 15-minute increment immediately following the Belmont. The ratings then started to erode.

On to Friday, where the top prime-time scorer was ABC’s 20/20 in both total viewers (188,298) and 18-to-49-year-olds (72,537). But the day’s overall most-watched TV attraction was CBS11’s 6:30 p.m. edition of Wheel of Fortune, with 230,142 total viewers. The Rangers-Royals game drew 153,428 total viewers on FSS.

Here are Friday’s four-way local news derby results.

Gannett8 dominated the 10 p.m. competitions in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 and NBC5 tied for the most total viewers at 6 a.m. But for the first time in recent memory -- and very likely the first time ever -- CBS11 won among 25-to-54-year-olds. In fact, it wasn’t that close. CBS11 had 35,561 viewers in this realm while the usual frontrunner -- Fox4 -- ran second with 26,671. Gannett8, lately the new loss leader in this key news demographic, bottomed out with a fourth-place 20,744 viewers of the 25-to-54 persuasion.

NBC5 ran the table at 5 p.m. and added a 6 p.m. win with 25-to-54-year-olds. CBS11 had the most total viewers at 6 p.m.

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