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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs., Feb. 19) -- good night for all but NBC

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
A crowded night of heavy hitters brought some good news for ABC, CBS and Fox while NBC’s totally revamped Thursday lineup continued to struggle. Yes, that even includes The Blacklist.

CBS’ The Big Bang Theory as usual led off with prime-time’s top numbers, drawing 432,388 D-FW viewers and 145,075 in the advertiser-prized 25-to-54-year-old demographic.

The network’s premiere of The Odd Couple then held off the second halves of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and Fox’s American Idol to win from 7:30 to 8 p.m. with 278,960 total viewers. Odd Couple slipped to third with 18-to-49-year-olds while Grey’s led the way with 132,460.

CBS’ one-hour Two and a Half Men men series finale won at 8 p.m. with 244,090 total viewers. But the 18-to-49 crown went to ABC’s Scandal (97,768).

At 9 p.m., ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder held off Fox4’s local newscast to lead in total viewers with 265,012. HTGAWM also had the most 18-to-49-year-olds at that hour (110,383).

Fox’s 8 p.m. episode of the first-year series Backstrom, saddled with one of TV’s toughest time slots, managed to increase its 18-to-49-year-old audience for the third straight week. And in this case, that was good enough to outdraw NBC’s once high and mighty Blacklist for third place in the 8 to 9 p.m. slot. The score was 59,922 viewers to 50,461.

Blacklist currently is sandwiched between two first-year NBC bombs. The Slap at 7 p.m. and Allegiance at 9 p.m. Both ran distant fourths across the board. The Slap’s 22,077 viewers in the key 18-to-49 demographic ranked as the night’s lowest.

Over on TNT, the Dallas Mavericks put up decent numbers for their otherwise lackluster loss to Oklahoma City to start the second half of the NBA season. The Mavs had 146,454 total viewers and a solid percentage of 85,153 in the 18-to-49 realm.

Here are the local news derby results for the 16th weekday of the February “sweeps,” which end on Wednesday.

Gannett8 won big at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming). The newscast was capped by a sendoff for longstanding sports reporter George Riba, who called it a night after a 37-and-a-half year career with the station.

Fox4 swept the 6 a.m. competitions and also ran first at 5 and 6 p.m. with 25-to-54-year-olds. NBC5 had the most total viewers at 5 p.m. and Gannett8 was tops in that measurement at 6 p.m.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net