Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., Nov. 30-Dec. 2) -- fans flock in fewer and older numbers to Cowboys' win over low-flying Eagles
12/03/12 09:58 AM
By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom
The Cowboys fluttered over the 1.2 million mark with their less than stellar 38-33 home win over the bedraggled Eagles.
Still, the prime-time stage on NBC's Sunday Night Football wasn't enough to power the game past the Thanksgiving Day matchup against the Redskins.
Cowboys-Eagles, which ran until 10:38 p.m., averaged 1,218,503 D-FW viewers, down from the 1,301,114 who watched Dallas lose to the RG III-led Redskins. This season's most-watched game is still the Sept. 5 opening night NFL kickoff win against the Giants, which drew 1,348,046 viewers on NBC.
Let's look a bit deeper into the audience composition for Sunday's game against Philadelphia. Because on that scorecard, the Cowboys are starting to skew alarmingly old in terms of the audiences that most advertisers want to reach.
Among D-FW viewers in the 18-to-34 demographic -- some of whom are too young to remember the Cowboys' last Super Bowl appearance in 1996 -- Sunday night's game proved to be something of a turn-off. It drew 172,607 viewers in this age range, according to data from Nielsen Media Research.
In contrast, the game had 599,576 viewers aged 50 years and over. And 263,640 of those viewers were 65+. Whether fair or not, older viewers are still written off as too set in their ways by many advertisers. Unlike an "impressionable" 18-to-34-year-old, they are more likely to resist an ad for -- let's make up a product name -- the new Pogo Stick brand 32-hour energy drink.
For Sunday's Cowboys-Eagles game, almost half the audience was in the 50+ range. That doesn't quite make Tony Romo and his mates the equivalent of Matlock. But they're getting there -- and seemingly in a pretty big hurry as time marches on and the Cowboys remain a clear and present danger to the team's storied legacy of 8 Super Bowl appearances and 5 Lombardi trophies.
Winning, of course, might well cure many of these demographic ills while pushing the Cowboys back into their accustomed ratings stratosphere. Drawing more than 1.2 million viewers for anything is still highly impressive.
But Jerry's Team increasingly seems to be out-of-sight, out-of-mind for many younger viewers. The D-FW market has 1,675,765 viewers in the 18-to-34 age group. Sunday's game barely drew 10 percent of them. The population of 50+ viewers is 1,978,768. Sunday's game lured 30 percent of them. And that's not even counting Jerry, who was in his usual Cowboys Stadium perch to watch the Cowboys cling to their longshot post-season hopes.
In Sunday's other NFL action, the valiant Green Bay Packers' early game win over Minnesota averaged 330,442 total viewers on Fox while CBS' competing Texans-Titans game had 227,179. CBS' followup Steelers-Ravens game then jumped to 447,473 viewers.
Saturday's Nielsens were paced by the big Alabama-Georgia game on CBS and ABC's prime-time matchup of Texas and Kansas State. Each game averaged 337,326 viewers. Meanwhile, Uncle Barky and a ragtag band of fellow Wisconsin natives watched the plucky li'l Badgers qualify for their third straight Rose Bowl appearance by destroying Nebraska. Fox had the game in prime-time, drawing a "crowd" of 61,958 viewers. NBC's annual reprise of It's A Wonderful Life had 110,147 viewers opposite the two college football games.
In Friday's local news derby derby results, CBS11 topped the 10 p.m. field in total viewers but WFAA8 again won among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.
Fox4 swept the 6 a.m. competitions and WFAA8 had a big day in the early evening, running the table at both 5 and 6 p.m.
unclebarky@verizon.net
@unclebarkycom
The Cowboys fluttered over the 1.2 million mark with their less than stellar 38-33 home win over the bedraggled Eagles.
Still, the prime-time stage on NBC's Sunday Night Football wasn't enough to power the game past the Thanksgiving Day matchup against the Redskins.
Cowboys-Eagles, which ran until 10:38 p.m., averaged 1,218,503 D-FW viewers, down from the 1,301,114 who watched Dallas lose to the RG III-led Redskins. This season's most-watched game is still the Sept. 5 opening night NFL kickoff win against the Giants, which drew 1,348,046 viewers on NBC.
Let's look a bit deeper into the audience composition for Sunday's game against Philadelphia. Because on that scorecard, the Cowboys are starting to skew alarmingly old in terms of the audiences that most advertisers want to reach.
Among D-FW viewers in the 18-to-34 demographic -- some of whom are too young to remember the Cowboys' last Super Bowl appearance in 1996 -- Sunday night's game proved to be something of a turn-off. It drew 172,607 viewers in this age range, according to data from Nielsen Media Research.
In contrast, the game had 599,576 viewers aged 50 years and over. And 263,640 of those viewers were 65+. Whether fair or not, older viewers are still written off as too set in their ways by many advertisers. Unlike an "impressionable" 18-to-34-year-old, they are more likely to resist an ad for -- let's make up a product name -- the new Pogo Stick brand 32-hour energy drink.
For Sunday's Cowboys-Eagles game, almost half the audience was in the 50+ range. That doesn't quite make Tony Romo and his mates the equivalent of Matlock. But they're getting there -- and seemingly in a pretty big hurry as time marches on and the Cowboys remain a clear and present danger to the team's storied legacy of 8 Super Bowl appearances and 5 Lombardi trophies.
Winning, of course, might well cure many of these demographic ills while pushing the Cowboys back into their accustomed ratings stratosphere. Drawing more than 1.2 million viewers for anything is still highly impressive.
But Jerry's Team increasingly seems to be out-of-sight, out-of-mind for many younger viewers. The D-FW market has 1,675,765 viewers in the 18-to-34 age group. Sunday's game barely drew 10 percent of them. The population of 50+ viewers is 1,978,768. Sunday's game lured 30 percent of them. And that's not even counting Jerry, who was in his usual Cowboys Stadium perch to watch the Cowboys cling to their longshot post-season hopes.
In Sunday's other NFL action, the valiant Green Bay Packers' early game win over Minnesota averaged 330,442 total viewers on Fox while CBS' competing Texans-Titans game had 227,179. CBS' followup Steelers-Ravens game then jumped to 447,473 viewers.
Saturday's Nielsens were paced by the big Alabama-Georgia game on CBS and ABC's prime-time matchup of Texas and Kansas State. Each game averaged 337,326 viewers. Meanwhile, Uncle Barky and a ragtag band of fellow Wisconsin natives watched the plucky li'l Badgers qualify for their third straight Rose Bowl appearance by destroying Nebraska. Fox had the game in prime-time, drawing a "crowd" of 61,958 viewers. NBC's annual reprise of It's A Wonderful Life had 110,147 viewers opposite the two college football games.
In Friday's local news derby derby results, CBS11 topped the 10 p.m. field in total viewers but WFAA8 again won among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.
Fox4 swept the 6 a.m. competitions and WFAA8 had a big day in the early evening, running the table at both 5 and 6 p.m.
unclebarky@verizon.net