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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Mon., Sept. 25) -- double vision for Cowboys on official first night of fall season

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
The Dallas Cowboys played on two TV venues Monday night while angry D-FW fans of Dancing with the Stars predictably pounded TEGNA8 on its official Facebook page for sending the hoofers and puffers to obscure digital channel 8.2.

The Cowboys’ 28-17 road win over the Arizona Cardinals on ESPN’s Monday Night Football averaged 828,905 viewers for TEGNA8’s simulcast and 407,182 on the cable mothership. Hand calculator technology says that’s a grand total of 1,236,087 viewers for a game that stretched until 10:46 p.m.

Last year’s Game 3, a Cowboys-Chicago Bears matchup on NBC’s Sunday Night Football, drew a significantly larger crowd of 1,565,210 viewers.

Some will say this is because of the NFL players’ protests against President Trump’s call to “fire” anyone who didn’t stand during the playing of the National Anthem. Throughout the league Sunday and Monday, some took a knee and others locked their arms in protest while standing. In the Cowboys’ case, players, coaches and owner Jerry Jones uniquely knelt and locked arms before the Anthem and then stood for its playing.

Others might note that ratings for the Peacock’s Sunday Night Football typically are higher than for other Cowboys’ games. In any case, a difference of more than 300,000 viewers is notable.

Among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, TEGNA8 had 314,296 viewers and ESPN, 102,627 for a total haul of 416,923. That’s way, way down from the 698,654 for last year’s Game 3. It’s also further evidence that the NFL increasingly is skewing older.

Monday also marked the official launch of the new fall season, although ABC’s scheduled 9 p.m. premiere of The Good Doctor has been shuttled to 7 p.m. Tuesday on TEGNA8.

Before the Cowboys and Cardinals fired up at 7:30 p.m., CBS’ 7 p.m. season premiere of The Big Bang Theory narrowly lost its time slot in total viewers with 407,182 while TEGNA8’s competing, locally produced Cowboys pre-game show had 414,453. In the 18-to-49 age range, Big Bang turned the tables and decisively won by a score of 189,219 viewers to 105,834.

The first episode of CBS’ Big Bang spin-off, Young Sheldon, then performed solidly against the first half-hour of the Cowboys game, drawing 334,471 total viewers and 118,653 within the 18-to-49 motherlode.

CBS’ 8:30 p.m. premiere of Me, Myself & I tailed off to 123,609 total viewers and 51,314 in the 18-to-49 demographic. That put it in third place among the Big Four broadcast networks, ahead of only the closing half-hour of Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance.

NBC’s 9 p.m. premiere of The Brave managed 152,963 total viewers and 54,521 in the 18-to-49 realm. That put it in second place in both ratings measurements.

Earlier Monday, the 9 a.m. launch of NBC’s Megyn Kelly Today had 58,169 total viewers and 16,036 in the 18-to-49 demographic. Although meager, those numbers were still good enough to twice beat Fox4’s syndicated Live with Kelly & Ryan. CBS’ double dose of Let’s Make a Deal was the 9 to 10 a.m. leader in both ratings measurements.

Finally, here are the local news derby results.

NBC5 nipped CBS11 in total viewers at 10 p.m. in a downsized three-way race while CBS11 had the top spot to itself with 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 again ran the table at 6 a.m. The 6 p.m. golds went to NBC5 in total viewers and Fox4 among 25-to-54-year-olds.

At 5 p.m., Fox4 won in total viewers and NBC5 had the most 25-to-54-year-olds.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net