powered by FreeFind

Apple iTunes

Archives

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., Sept. 18-20) -- trauma in Cowboys land but still strength in numbers

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo’s broken clavicle and an overall ugly game didn’t stop the team from breaking the 2015 season ratings high set the previous week on NBC’s Sunday Night Football

The Cowboys’ 20-10 win over the blundering Philadelphia Eagles, which ran from 3:25 to 6:38 p.m. on Fox, averaged 1,527,306 D-FW viewers to inch past the season opener’s 1,485,462 viewers. A total of 678,067 were in the advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-old demographic, falling just a bit short of the 690,682 for the Cowboys’ last-second win over the New York Giants.

Fox then followed up with the three-hour Primetime Emmy Awards, which drooped to 432,388 total viewers and 170,305 in the 18-to-49 age range. The Andy Samberg-hosted awards ceremony was soundly beaten by NBC’s competing Green Bay Packers-Seattle Seahawks matchup, which had 634,634 total viewers and 331,149 within the 18-to-49 motherlode.

Fox’s Cowboys-Eagles afternoon lead-in, the Atlanta Falcons-New York Giants game, also drew a bigger crowd than the Emmys with 467,258 total viewers and 204,997 in the 18-to-49 measurement. The afternoon Texas Rangers-Seattle Mariners game, with the first-place North Texas 9 losing 9-2, never had a chance against the end of Falcons-Giants and the Cowboys game. The first-place Rangers drew just 62,766 total viewers.

On the other hand, ABC was a virtual test pattern in prime-time Sunday. Its most-watched attraction, America’s Funniest Videos, had a sub-measly 27,896 total viewers. In the 18-to-49 demographic, ABC’s Once Upon A Time rerun ranked highest with 9,461 viewers in a D-FW market of 3.15 million viewers in that age range.

On to Saturday’s college football parade, which was led by Texas’ 45-44 loss to California on a missed extra point. The game averaged 188,298 total viewers in prime-time on Fox. ESPN’s Saturday night attraction, another high-scoring thriller between victorious Mississippi and Alabama, didn’t end until 12:27 a.m. Sunday morning. It came in second with 160,402 total viewers. Over on FSS, Saturday’s prime-time TCU-SMU game had 83,688 viewers.

Saturday night’s Rangers win over Seattle averaged 125,532 viewers on TXA21.

In Friday’s prime-time Nielsens, the Rangers hit a weekend high of 160,402 viewers on FSS. That was good enough to outdraw all competing programming.

Here are Friday’s local news derby results.

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

Fox4 again scored twin wins at 6 a.m. At 6 p.m., TEGNA8 and CBS11 tied for first in total viewers, but Fox4 nipped TEGNA8 for the top spot with 25-to-54-year-olds.

The 5 p.m. golds went to TEGNA8 in total viewers while Fox4 and CBS11 shared the lead among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net