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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Mon., Sept. 12) -- ESPN roughs up competition with MNF doubleheader

By ED BARK
Television's most potent reality series -- pro pigskin -- blew out all opponents with a double dose of ESPN's Monday Night Football.

The 6 p.m. opener, with the pass-happy Patriots whipping the over-matched Dolphins, averaged 387,839 D-FW viewers. Then came the penalty-choked Raiders-Broncos game, with Oakland prevailing to the tune of 325,508 viewers.

Both games also routed the competition among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, giving ESPN more than six hour of continuous prosperity stretching from early evening to post-midnight.

Monday night's most-watched broadcast network attraction, Fox's 8 to 9 p.m. edition of Hell's Kitchen, had 214,697 total viewers while also finishing a distant second-best to football among 18-to-49ers. NBC's two-hour Miss Universe Pageant flopped from 8 to 10 p.m. with just 90,034 total viewers. That wasn't even enough to outdraw ABC's competing Bachelor Pad, which had 110,811 viewers for those two hours.

In the daytime arena, the premiere of Anderson Cooper's new syndicated talk hour, Anderson, won its 3 p.m. slot with a less than imposing 62,331 total viewers on WFAA8. But it faltered with 18-to-49-year-olds, finishing in a fifth place tie with CBS11's Dr. Phil behind Fox4's double dose of Judge Joe Brown, CW33's The Tyra Show, NBC5's Ellen and MY27's double run of House of Payne.

In local news derby results, the 10 p.m. wins were split between WFAA8 in total viewers and NBC5 with 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 swept the 6 a.m. competitions and also won at 5 and 6 p.m. in the 25-to-54 demographic. WFAA8 had the total viewer golds in the two early evening slots.

As a new fall season gets ready to roll in earnest next week, WFAA8's Daybreak continues to lag well behind both Fox4 and NBC5 in the key early morning ratings wars. Monday's edition tied CBS11 for third place in total viewers and finished just one-tenth of a point ahead of CBS11 with 25-to-54-year-olds.

Worse yet for WFAA8's early morning fortunes, CBS11 still hasn't named a permanent male anchor after dropping Scott Sams (who's now at KRLD-AM radio) back in late March. Meanwhile, WFAA8 continues to heavily promote its still relatively new anchor team of Cynthia Izaguirre and Ron Corning, who joined her in late April.
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