powered by FreeFind

Apple iTunes

Archives

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., Nov. 22) -- X Factor vs. Dancing before WFAA8 cashes in

By ED BARK
The penultimate night of the November "sweeps" featured a clash between a "special" two-hour Tuesday edition of Fox's The X Factor and the latest season finale of ABC's Dancing with the Stars.

They overlapped from 8 to 9 p.m., with X Factor's closing hour drawing 352,253 D-FW viewers to the 345,479 for Dancing's warmup hour. X Factor won by a much wider margin among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, giving Fox the night's resident cash cow.

CBS' NCIS as usual won from 7 to 8 p.m. with a commanding 419,994 total viewers. But it was no match for X Factor among 18-to-49-year-olds, sliding to a far back second place.

Dancing mustered a strong finishing kick, easily winning from 9 to 10 p.m. in total viewers with 453,865 while CBS' Unforgettable ran a distant second in that hour with 223,545 viewers. Dancing also prevailed among 18-to-49-year-olds, with Fox4's 9 p.m. local newscast taking the runner-up spot.

The final 15 minutes of Dancing, in which inspirational Iraq war veteran J.R. Martinez outlasted pretty boy Rob Kardashian, drew a king-sized 521,606 total viewers. WFAA8 then sprung into action, quick-starting its 10 p.m. newscast at 9:59 p.m. and rolling up 345,479 viewers to crunch second-place CBS11 (176,127).

The two stations were locked in another tight battle for the 10 p.m. win in total viewers, with CBS11 staging a late rally and winning the four previous weeknights. But the Dancing-fueled ratings windfall likely will be the difference-maker for WFAA8's 10 p.m. news, which on Wednesday's closing night of the sweeps will be preceded by a new 9 p.m. episode of ABC's popular Revenge while CBS feeds its stations Thanksgiving eve gruel in the form of a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation repeat.

WFAA8 also easily topped Tuesday's 10 p.m. race among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. But it already had a win locked up in this key demographic.

NBC5's newscasts otherwise stood tall Tuesday, running the table at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. while adding a 5 p.m. win in the 25-to-54 demographic. Fox4 took the other gold with a 5 p.m. first in total viewers.

We'll have the complete November sweeps local news ratings results on Monday. For a look at where they stood at the 15-day mark, go here.