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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed.-Thurs., April 8-9) -- Texas Rangers out-hit Spieth-fueled 1st round of Masters

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
The Texas Rangers’ 10-1 road rout of Oakland went head-to-head for much of Thursday afternoon with Round 1 of The Masters, in which 21-year-old Dallas Jesuit High School graduate Jordan Spieth blazed to a three-stroke lead.

Rather surprisingly, the Rangers averaged a bigger D-FW crowd, drawing 52,305 viewers to The Masters’ 46,028. Baseball also outdrew pro golf’s premier tournament among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds, by a score of 25,230 viewers to 9,146. The Rangers had a peak audience of 92,754 total viewers between 4:45 and 5 p.m. while The Masters topped out at 59,976 viewers between 5 and 5:15 p.m.

Rangers-Oakland began at 2:35 p.m. on Fox Sports Southwest and The Masters was shown from 2 to 6:30 p.m. on ESPN. Spieth teed off Thursday at 12:15 p.m., meaning that the majority of his round was carried live. Tiger Woods got started 33 minutes later than Spieth, giving ESPN plenty of high-voltage story lines.

In prime-time Thursday, CBS’ 7 p.m. new episode of The Big Bang Theory easily ranked as the most-watched program in both total viewers (390,544) and 18-to-49-year-olds (173,459).

Wednesday’s top prime-time draws were NBC’s The Voice in total viewers (278,960) and CBS’ Criminal Minds in the 18-to-49 demographic (104,075).

On both Wednesday and Thursday nights, Fox4’s 9 p.m. local newscast won its time slot across the board against network programming on ABC, CBS and NBC. In each case it overcame lead-in disadvantages from Fox’s 8 to 9 p.m. attractions, American Idol and Backstrom.

Here are Wednesday’s and Thursday’s four-way local news derby results.

Wednesday -- CBS11 drew the most total viewers at 10 p.m. but Fox4 ran first with 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 won at 6 a.m. in total viewers and tied NBC5 for the top spot among 25-to-54-year-olds.

CBS11 had the most total viewers at 6 p.m. and tied NBC5 for first in that measurement at 5 p.m. The 25-to-54 golds went to Fox4 at 5 p.m. and the Peacock at 6 p.m.

Thursday -- Gannett8 broke through with a 10 p.m. win in total viewers but lost among 25-to-54-year-olds to Fox4.

Fox4 ran the table at both 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. while NBC5 notched twin wins at 5 p.m.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net