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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., Feb. 13) -- chairman of the board: White's climactic gold medal run lights up Day 6 of Olympics

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Snowboarding legend Shaun White saved his best run for last Tuesday, winning his third Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe with a gasp-worthy, do or die final ride.

D-FW’s Winter Olympics ratings spiked accordingly, peaking at 697,966 viewers between 9 and 9:15 p.m., when White made the run and then waited to see if it was deemed good enough. If not, he would have won the silver, finishing second to Japan’s Ayumo Hirano.

Tuesday night’s NBC coverage of Day 6 from Pyeongchang stretched all the way to 10:43 p.m., with the ratings markedly deflating during live coverage of the pairs figure skating competition, in which the U.S. has no chance to win a medal. From 10:30 to 10:45 p.m., the audience drooped to a low of 320,495 viewers after steadily declining from 9:15 p.m. onward.

Overall, the Olympics averaged 505,669 viewers Tuesday night, with 199,718 in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic. That’s down from 553,901 total viewers and 267,049 in the 18-to-49 age range for the equivalent Night 6 of the 2014 Winter Games from Sochi.

Among competing programs, Fox4’s 9 p.m. local newscast and CBS’ 7 p.m. repeat of NCIS tied for the distant runner-up spot in total viewers with 185,175 apiece. Fox4’s news had second place to itself among 18-to-49ers with 43,688.

And now for Tuesday’s local news derby results.

NBC5’s 10 p.m. news again was pushed deeper into the night, leaving TEGNA8 to win a three-way race in total viewers while Fox4 ran first with 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 remained unbeaten this winter at 6 a.m., logging another sweep. The Peacock then crowed a quartet of times in the early evening, scoring twin wins at both 5 and 6 p.m.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net