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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri. Oct. 29 - Mon., Nov. 1) -- Buried Rangers bury buried Cowboys


Giants starter Tim Lincecum revels after Game 5. Photo: Ed Bark

By ED BARK
The Texas Rangers' World Series run and the Dallas Cowboys' already slim post-season hopes came to crashing ends during the biggest three-day pro sports extravaganza in North Texas history.

And in unprecedented ratings verdicts, all three Rangers games on Fox had far bigger audiences than the Cowboys' high noon march to boot hill Sunday on CBS. Let's look at the scoreboard as unclebarky.com returns to the living following an Internet router flameout Saturday that left your friendly content provider waiting at length for a replacement from a communications company that shall not be named (except that it rhymes with horizon).

Monday's climactic Game 5 of the Series drew the biggest TV audience. The 3-1 Giants' clincher, with Nelson Cruz striking out at 9:30 p.m. to end the baseball season, drew a mega-sized 1,433,620 D-FW viewers. That nipped the 1,419,769 viewers for Game 1 to rank as the most-watched game in Rangers history. ABC's competing 200th episode celebration on Dancing with the Stars had a respectable 401,691 viewers opposite Monday's Series swan song.

Game 4 on Sunday night averaged 1,288,180 viewers, routing NBC's competing marquee Sunday Night Football matchup between the Saints and Steelers (228,548 viewers). Nationally, however, Sunday Night Football beat a World Series game for the first time ever.

Saturday night's Rangers win, the only one of the Series, also had the smallest TV crowd of the three home games with 1,205,072 D-FW viewers. That may have been in part due to the early 6 p.m. start time.

Oh yeah, the Cowboys. Their record slipped to 1-6 -- worse even than the Detroit Lions at this point of the season -- with a lifeless 35-17 home loss to the less than imposing Jacksonville Jaguars. Viewers turned away, although not that many tuned in at the start.

Overall, the Cowboys averaged fewer than one million viewers for the first time in at least two years. The final count of 907,276 viewers is the smallest Cowboys crowd since unclebarky.com converted from total homes to total viewer ratings in November 2008. A 35-14 drubbing by the Giants on Nov. 2 of that year barely got past the one million mark with 1.03 million viewers.

Sunday's other big pro football matchup, the Vikings and Patriots on Fox, had 519,428 viewers as a warmup for the World Series.

In local news derby results, a World Series-less Friday put all four major competitors in play during the four principal time slots.

CBS11 ran the table at 10 p.m. for the second straight weekday of the November "sweeps," winning in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming on most stations.

Fox4 likewise swept the 6 a.m. competitions while also taking the 5 and 6 p.m. golds among 25-to-54-year-olds. WFAA8 won at 5 p.m. in total viewers and tied with Fox 4 for first place at 6 p.m. in that measurement.

On Monday, CBS11 stretched its 10 p.m. sweeps streak to three days with another doubleheader win.

Fox remained solid at 6 a.m. with two golds while CBS11 swept the 6 p.m. Nielsens. The 5 p.m. spoils were divided between WFAA8 in total viewers and Fox4 with 25-to-54-year-olds.