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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., Dec. 15) -- Republicans romp

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Not even the latest season finale of NBC’s The Voice could stop the Republicans from again riding herd in the D-FW Nielsen ratings.

CNN’s nine-candidate main debate, which fired up at 7:48 p.m. and ended at 10:05 p.m., outdrew everything else in sight Tuesday night. It averaged 446,191 total viewers and 149,258 in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic.

The Voice, which went directly opposite the debate from 8 to 10 p.m., ran second on both counts with 361,202 total viewers and 95,271 in the 18-to-49 age range.

CBS’ NCIS won the bulk of the 7 p.m. hour in total viewers with 332,873.

Republican debate ratings this year have been unprecedentedly through the roof, with bombastic frontrunner Donald Trump obviously the straw that stirs this drink. On Tuesday night, the audience held steady from start to finish. (Nationally, CNN says the debate averaged 18 million viewers to rank as the network’s second most-watched program ever behind only the 23.1 million viewers for September’s GOP face-off.)

Here are Tuesday’s local news derby results.

NBC5 ran first at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 again easily ran the table at 6 a.m. and also trounced the three network morning shows in both measurements during the 7 to 9 a.m. segment.

CBS11 drew the most total viewers at 6 p.m. while Fox4 won with 25-to-54-year-olds.

It was another split decision at 5 p.m., with NBC5 pulling in the most total viewers and TEGNA8 topping the 25-to-54 Nielsens.

LOCAL NEWS NOTE: TEGNA8 has hired Tim Gardner as the new executive producer of its early morning Daybreak program.

Gardner, 63, previously was news director at Birmingham, Alabama’s WVTM-TV for eight years before resigning in June and moving to Dallas to be with his family. He’s originally from Fayette, Alabama and is a graduate of the University of Alabama. Gardner also has worked for TV stations in Austin and San Antonio.

Daybreak has been struggling in the ratings. But in the 6 a.m. hour during the November “sweeps,” it bounced back up to third place in the key 25-to-54 demographic after CBS11 ran better than last in that measurement last May for the first time in station history. TEGNA also made history it would rather forget about by dropping to fourth. That likewise had never happened before in the most-watched 6 a.m. hour of D-FW’s local waker-uppers.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net