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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs., March 19) -- Idol jumps through hoops

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
American Idol is no Empire -- at least not anymore.

Fox still has a valuable property, though. On a day jammed with opening day NCAA hoops tournament action, Idol’s latest two-hour edition ranked as Thursday’s overall top draw with 278,960 D-FW viewers. Fox4’s following local newscast then won its 9 p.m. slot with 244,090 viewers.

Among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds, Idol won from 7 to 8 p.m. before tying NBC’s Blacklist for the top spot in the 8 p.m. hour. Fox4’s news was then nipped by the 9 to 10 p.m. portion of CBS’ Kentucky-Hampton game.

All five Texas teams were bounced from the tourney in a single day. Ratings for the SMU-UCLA and Stephen F. Austin-Utah games, both exiled to little truTV, were not immediately available. Here’s how the three other matchups played out in the Nielsen numbers game. All were in daytime hours.

Texas-Butler on CBS -- 104,610 total viewers
Baylor-Georgia State on TBS -- 41,844
Texas Southern-Arizona on TNT -- 6,974

The most-watched game of the day, CBS’ nighttime telecast of Cincinnati-Purdue (which went to overtime), drew 132,506 viewers.

Also in prime-time, the third episode of ABC’s acclaimed American Crime series ranked second at 9 p.m. with 160,402 total viewers. It dropped a notch to third with 18-to-49-year-olds, with NBC’s The Slap ranking last at 9 p.m. in both ratings measurements.

Here are Thursday’s local news derby results, with CBS11’s 6 and 10 p.m. editions rubbed out by basketball.

Gannett8 topped the downsized 10 p.m. competitions in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 rang up another pair of 6 a.m. wins, with an especially dominant showing among 25-to-54-year-olds. The station had 68,158 viewers in this key demographic, more than the combined total for NBC5, CBS11 and Gannett8, which continued to slump with its fifth straight fourth-place finish.

Gannett8 had the most total viewers in the three-way 6 p.m. race, while Fox4 took the 25-to-54 gold. At 5 p.m. NBC5 ran first in total viewers, with Fox4 and Gannett8 tying for the top spot among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net