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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., March 7-9)

By ED BARK
Friday's early morning newscasts drew droves of foul weather friends.

So much so that the wake-up editions on Fox4 and NBC5 had more viewers than any of their stations' early evening and late night newscasts. And on WFAA8, only the mighty 10 p.m. news had a bigger crowd.

Prospects of snow-induced school closings and skid-prone roadways always make for toasty ratings. But Friday's Nielsens were real eye-openers.

Fox4 led at 6 a.m. with 175,363 total homes, way up from its February "sweeps" average of 98,642.

WFAA8 and NBC5 tied for second with 168,056 homes. In the sweeps, their respective averages were 98,398 and 75,034.

CBS11 ran a distant fourth Friday with 63,326 homes. Still, that was up a few notches from its sweeps average of 43,841 homes.

Fox4 also led at 6 a.m. among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. In fact it drew more of them -- 150,170 -- than for any of its other news and entertainment programming Friday. The Peacock ran second, followed by WFAA8 and CBS11.

WFAA8 took the 10 p.m. golds Friday in both ratings measurements, and did likewise at 5 p.m. The 6 p.m. spoils were split by WFAA8, which won in homes, and Fox4, in first place among 25-to-54-year-olds.

In prime-time network competition, CBS' Price Is Right special won at 7 p.m. with 177,799 homes. NBC's completely forgettable Amnesia game show barely registered with 41,405 homes.

Saturday's Dallas Mavericks' win over New Jersey, in which Dirk Nowitzki became the team's all-time leading scorer, drew a decent-sized 104,731 homes on TXA21.

On Sunday night, the second episode of ABC's Oprah's Big Give was the day's most-watched program with 226,511 homes. Here Come the Newlyweds then fell to 136,394 homes, running third in that measurement but still managing a time slot win among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds.