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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., Feb. 8) -- Idol's turn to flex

By ED BARK
Another network TV big gun dominated the prime-time landscape Wednesday, with Fox's American Idol rolling up 541,928 D-FW viewers to rank as the night's runaway most-watched attraction.

That fell a bit shy of CBS' NCIS, which had 548,702 viewers on Tuesday night. But it was better than NBC's The Voice, whose two-hour edition amassed 501,283 viewers on Monday night. All three shows had no equal in the audience-grabbing department.

CBS' Criminal Minds won Wednesday's 8 p.m. slot with 359,027 viewers while Fox's Mobbed plunged to 203,223 viewers. At 9 p.m., CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation took the total viewers crown with 291,286.

Idol and CSI also won their time slots with advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds. But from 8 to 8:30 p.m., ABC's Modern Family topped that key demographic before Minds prevailed from 8:30 to 9 p.m.

The premiere of CBS' Person to Person, a re-imagined version of the old Edward R. Murrow hour, ran a respectable second in the 7 p.m. hour ahead of ABC's The Middle and Suburgatory and NBC's Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea?.

Person skewed north of Forest Lawn, though, with its minimal 18-to-49-year-old audience putting it fifth behind Fox, ABC, NBC and The CW's One Tree Hill.

ABC's 9 p.m. entry, Revenge, started fast in the fall but now is flagging. It ran third in total viewers, ahead of Fox4's local newscast, but dipped to fourth place at that hour with 18-to-49-year-olds.

In Wednesday's "sweeps"-infused local news derby results, an increasingly competitive NBC5 tied CBS11 for first place at 10 p.m. in total viewers and won outright with 25-to-54-year-olds, the prime target audience for news programming.

It's always something, though. Fox4 narrowly ran the table at 6 a.m. while the Peacock barely beat a resurgent WFAA8 in total viewers and again fell to third behind the ABC station in the 25-to-54 measurement. NBC5 and WFAA8 are in a horse race for second place at this early hour among 25-to-54-year-olds, with WFAA8 hoping to get out of third place for the first time in several years.

WFAA8 swept the 5 p.m. competitions, where it continues to battle NBC5 through the first five weekdays of the February sweeps. CBS11 remained strong in the total viewers measurement at 6 p.m., notching its third straight win. Fox4 is still in great shape with 25-to-54-year-olds, winning its fourth 6 p.m. face-off in five nights.