powered by FreeFind

Apple iTunes

Archives

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., Aug. 11) -- victory in defeat: gut-grinding Rangers loss sets all-time FSS viewing record

By ED BARK
No attraction on Fox Sports Southwest -- including football -- has drawn a bigger crowd than Wednesday night's agony-of-defeat Texas Rangers-New York Yankees game.

An average of 366,460 D-FW viewers watched the home team blow a 6-1 lead and eventually succumb 7-6 in a game that stretched from 7:09 to 10:54 p.m. A peak audience of almost a half million watched between 10:15 and 10:30 p.m. Both are all-time FSS highs, the network says, exceeding the household and total viewer numbers for a March 19, 2002 game between the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers. No wonder Mavs owner Mark Cuban wanted to buy the Rangers.

A pair of usually potent network competition series were dwarfed by the Rangers' numbers.

Fox's first of a two-part So You Think You Can Dance season finale drew 176,444 viewers from 7 to 9 p.m. while NBC's one-hour 8 p.m. edition of America's Got Talent had 149,299 viewers. The biggest 9 p.m. draw -- among the Big 4 broadcast networks -- was CBS' CSI: NY repeat (128,940 viewers). The Rangers-Yankees game had more than three times that many viewers from 9 to 10 p.m. while also crushing all four local 10 p.m. newscasts. From 10 to 10:15 p.m., the game had more viewers than the combined total audience for Fox4, NBC5, WFAA8 and CBS11.

Otherwise here's the way it looked in Wednesday's local news derby.

WFAA8 swept the 10 p.m. proceedings, winning in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming on most stations.

Fox4 and NBC tied for first at 6 a.m. in total viewers, with Fox4 the sole gold medalist with 25-to-54-year-olds.

WFAA8 ran the table at 6 p.m. and also notched a 5 p.m. victory in total viewers. Fox4 ran first at 5 p.m. in the 25-to-54 measurement.