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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., Jan. 19) -- loud numbers for Season 10 Idol debut


Yikes, the new judges even liked bawdy Tiffany Rios. Fox photos

By ED BARK
Shorn of Simon Cowell and relaunching on a new night, Wednesday's Season 10 premiere of Fox's American Idol at times seemed intent on giving everyone a ticket to Hollywood.

New judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez were notably kinder as advertised. And the rejects had appreciably less air time during the two-hour trip to New Jersey. Meanwhile, D-FW audiences were more than willing to play along, driving Idol to total dominance from 7 to 9 p.m. over an array of first-run attractions on rival networks.

Idol amassed 602,536 viewers locally, with 256,667 of them in the coveted 18-to-49 demographic. The best showings for competing programs were 311,657 total viewers for CBS' Criminal Minds and 134,915 viewers in the 18-to-49 range for ABC's Modern Family.

Among the series left for dead were ex-Idol judge Paula Abdul's Live to Dance (131,588 total viewers in the 7 p.m. hour) and NBC's made-in-Dallas Chase (117,737 viewers at 8 p.m. on its new night and time).

(Nationally, Idol took a bit of a dip, according to "overnight" Nielsen numbers. Its 26.1 million viewers were down from 29.9 million for the Season 9 launch. And it dropped from an 11.8 to a 9.7 rating with 18-to-49-year-olds.)

Back in D-FW, CBS' Blue Bloods prospered in its first trial run on Wednesdays, winning the 9 p.m. hour in total viewers (311,657) over runner-up Fox4's local newscast (235,474 viewers). But the Tom Selleck-driven cop drama badly faltered with 18-to-49-year-olds, drawing just 32,906 of 'em compared to 88,846 apiece for Fox4's news and ABC's new Off the Map.

The Dallas Mavericks' gutty home win against the Los Angeles Lakers, which ended a six-game losing streak, had relatively pint-sized audiences on two outlets. TXA21's homegrown telecast averaged 90,034 total viewers while ESPN chipped in with 76,183. Demographically, however, the Mavs did beat Blue Bloods among 18-to-49-year-olds.

In local news derby results, CBS11 edged WFAA8 for the 10 p.m. gold in total viewers while NBC5 and WFAA8 tied for the top spot with 25-to-54-year-olds, main advertiser target audience for news programming on most stations.

Fox4 scored twin wins at 6 a.m. and WFAA8 did likewise at 5 p.m. The 6 p.m. race in total viewers amounted to a three-way tie among NBC5, WFAA8 and CBS11. But the Peacock gets the nod if the numbers are boiled down to one-hundredths of rating points. WFAA8 had the 6 p.m. gold to itself in the 25-to-54 demographic.