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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs.-Sun., April 11-14) -- Masters drama brings CBS to the fore

By ED BARK
@unclebarky
Sunday’s rain-soaked Masters playoff joust between Adam Scott and Angel Cabrera lit up CBS’ early evening ratings.

Scott’s winning birdie putt, at 6:38 p.m., hit a high of 406,168 D-FW viewers (in the 6:30 to 6:45 increment measured by Nielsen). As the drama built, so did the audience. Here are the crowds for the last one hour, 15 minutes of the Masters:

5:30 to 5:45 p.m. -- 234,063
5:45 to 6 p.m. -- 289,136
6 to 6:15 p.m. -- 302,905
6:15 to 6:30 p.m. -- 385,515
6:30 to 6:45 p.m. -- 406,168

A good part of the Dallas Mavericks’ beard shave-off game at New Orleans aired directly opposite The Masters on TXA21. It averaged 55,074 viewers but hit a high point of 103,263 in the first full 15-minute segment (6:45 to 7 p.m.) after the Masters ended.

AMC’s second Season 6 episode of Mad Men drooped to just 20,653 viewers in the 9 p.m. hour, falling well short of HBO’s 68,842 viewers for its 8 p.m. episode of Game of Thrones. HBO’s Season 2 premiere of Veep then tumbled to 6,842 viewers.

Saturday’s third round of The Masters on CBS averaged 117,031 viewers. The Texas 500 on Fox Saturday night drew 137,684 viewers to rank as prime-time’s top overall draw.

CBS swept Friday’s prime-time Nielsens with Undercover Boss (151,452 viewers), Vegas (247,831) and Blue Bloods (254,715). TXA21’s late-starting Texas Rangers game at Seattle averaged 192,758 viewers.

ABC’s Shark Tank and the first hour of the Rangers game had the edge from 8 to 10 p.m. among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds. The 7 p.m. hour was a tie between Undercover Boss and ABC’s two episodes of Happy Endings.

Fox’s American Idol results show had the most total viewers Thursday night with 282,252. But among 18-to-49-year-olds, it fell to second from 7 to 7:30 p.m. to a repeat of CBS’ The Big Bang Theory.

In the 9 p.m. hour, NBC’s second episode of Hannibal ran third in total viewers with 144,568 opposite Fox4’s local newscast (167,975) and CBS’ rerun of Elementary (163,844). Hannibal moved up to second with 18-to-49-year-olds, behind Fox4’s news.

Here are the four-way Thursday-Friday local news derby results:

Thursday -- CBS11 had the most total viewers at 10 p.m. but Fox4 was tops with 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. Fox4 also logged another doubleheader sweep at 6 a.m.

CBS11 ran first in total viewers at 6 p.m. while WFAA8 had the edge with 25-to-54-year-olds. Fox4 and WFAA8 shared the total viewers gold at 5 p.m., with Fox4 drawing the most 25-to-54-year-olds.

Friday -- CBS11 again won at 10 p.m. in total viewers, but WFAA8 had the most 25-to-54-year-olds.

Fox4 ran the table at 6 a.m. and WFAA8 did likewise at 5 p.m. WFAA8 also had the most total viewers at 6 p.m. while sharing first place with Fox4 in the 25-to-54 demographic.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net