powered by FreeFind

Apple iTunes

Archives

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs., March 21) -- oops for hoops

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom
D-FW is not a big college basketball market. And with no Texas teams in play, that truth became even more self-evident on opening day of the NCAA tournament.

The two nighttime games on CBS averaged 68,842 and 55,074 viewers compared to the half-million for a typical new Thursday episode of The Big Bang Theory. Thursday’s tourney games on TNT, TBS and Tru TV drew even smaller crowds.

Basketball did beat NBC’s 7 to 9 p.m. sitcom lineup, which consisted of two new 1600 Penn episodes, a first-run Community and a rerun of The Office. But hoops lost to The CW’s The Vampire Diaries , TXA21’s Texas Rangers-Los Angeles Angels spring training game and all prime-time programming on Fox and ABC.

Thursday’s respective 7 to 10 p.m. time slot winners were Fox’s American Idol (247,831 viewers), ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (254,715) and ABC’s Scandal (247,831). Those three shows also won among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds.

In the local news derby results, WFAA8 ran first at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 had another doubleheader sweep at 6 a.m. and also took both of the 5 p.m. golds. WFAA8 had twin wins at 6 p.m.

CBS11’s 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts were preempted by basketball.
Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net