powered by FreeFind

Apple iTunes

Archives

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., Feb. 19) -- another crime watch

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom
CBS' trio of crook-catchers again dominated Tuesday's prime-time terrain in total viewers, with NCIS as always the pacesetter.

The amazingly durable Mark Harmon crime hour led off the night with 475,010 D-FW viewers while also winning its 7 p.m. slot among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds.

NCIS: Los Angeles (385,515 viewers) and Vegas (296,021) likewise topped their hours, with Vegas also tying Fox4's local newscast for the 9 p.m. lead with 18-to-49-year-olds. ABC's The Bachelor Tells All broke through to win by a comfy margin at 8 p.m. in the 18-to-49 demographic.

Tuesday's 9 p.m. return of ABC's Body of Proof had 165,221 total viewers to run third at that hour behind Vegas and Fox4's news. It finished in the same spot with 18-to-49-year-olds while NBC's competing Smash again got badly mashed. It had far fewer viewers in the 18-to-49 range -- 22,326 -- than even The CW's little ol' 7 p.m. episode of Hart of Dixie (41,461).

Smash was a steamroller, though, compared to CW's 8 p.m. launch of Cult, which arrived DOA with 13,768 total viewers and just 6,379 in the 18-to-49 demo.

Over on KTXD-TV (Ch. 47), the second episodes of D: The Broadcast and D Living fared the same as Monday's first pair. From 9 to 11 a.m., both locally produced shows registered "hashmarks" (no measurable audience) on the Nielsen charts. The station's 11 a.m. episode of the original Hawaii Five-0 then crept up to 5,507 viewers.

Let's sprinkle in some extra perspective, though. The most-watched programs of the entire day on KTXD were a pair of The Rifleman episodes from 5 to 6 p.m.. They each drew just 16,522 viewers before the live 6 p.m. edition of The Texas Daily held on to 8,261 (one of its bigger audiences). The daily 9:30 p.m. encore of Texas Daily went back to hashmarks.

In short, it's going to be a long, slow, agonizing climb -- if in fact they climb at all -- for the two new D Magazine productions. Both are severely incompatible with the vintage repeats surrounding them. And to make it worse on both Monday and Tuesday, D: The Broadcast got no help at all from KTXD's 8 a.m. Daniel Boone reruns. They also came away with hashmarks.

One more thing while we're on this. WFAA8's long-running Good Morning Texas, which airs directly opposite D: The Broadcast, is no world-beater in the D-FW ratings. Still, Tuesday's 9 a.m. edition had 41,305 viewers compared to no measurable audience for the KTXD newcomer. Both shows are live. So which one do you think product-pushing celebrities are going to choose when they blow into town for a few hours? Time slot shift, anyone? And GMT isn't going anywhere.

OK, let's get to Tuesday's local news derby results as the February sweeps ratings period starts winding down to its Feb. 27th finish line.

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

The total viewer results were of particular interest. Runner-up CBS11 again got a nice lead-in advantage from the preceding 9:45 to 10 p.m. portion of Vegas, which had 296,021 viewers. WFAA8's lead-in from ABC's Body of Proof was 165,221 viewers.

But WFAA8 grew its 10 p.m. news audience to 220,294 viewers while CBS11's competing edition sagged to 213,410. The latter station can't afford too many nights like this if it wants to successfully defend its November sweeps 10 p.m. championship. It's still too close to call with six weekdays remaining.

The 6 a.m. competition also turned out to be a newsmaker in itself. Fox4 again won in total viewers, edging NBC5 while WFAA8 fell to an uncommon fourth behind CBS11. But Fox4 lost for the first time in 2013 in the 25-to-54 measurement. falling to the Peacock by a narrow margin while WFAA8 held off an improving CBS11 for third place. Fox4 remains unbeaten for the entire year at this hour in total viewers.

WFAA8 ran the table at 5 p.m. while Fox4 and NBC5 tied for first in total viewers at 6 p.m. The 25-to-54 gold at 6 p.m. went to Fox4.
unclebarky@verizon.net