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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., April 30)

By ED BARK
The Dallas Stars couldn't pull off a series sweep against San Jose in their Stanley Cup playoff matchup Wednesday, but did draw their highest ratings of the year on Fox Sports Southwest.

There's a bit of a disparity, though, between the numbers put out by FSS and those in the official Nielsen Media Research printout.

FSS says the game averaged a 3.1 rating (75,504 D-FW homes) peaking at 4.6 (112,036) in the closing 15 minutes -- 10:15 to 10:30 p.m.

Nielsen's printout gives the Stars a 2.8 rating (68,197 homes), with a high-point of 4.2 (102,295 homes) in those same 15 minutes.

At any rate, they beat the Texas Rangers, whose home win was seen in just 43,841 homes on MY27.

The premiere of The CW's Farmer Wants a Wife limped in with an even worse 38,970 D-FW homes.

Fox's latest American Idol results show again ruled the roost, drawing 297,143 homes to rank as the day's most-watched program. Fox4's 9 p.m. newscast then capitalized on that lead-in by drawing a time slot-winning 216,768 homes. The newscast also beat all competition among 25-to-54-year-olds and 18-to-49-year-olds, both seen as key target audiences by most advertisers.

WFAA8 otherwise just missed a double grand slam in the four major local newscast food groups in which a quartet of local stations battle for the top spot.

The ABC affiliate won handily at 10 p.m. in both total homes and with 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

WFAA8 also had twin wins at 6 a.m., edging Fox4 in total homes and winning by a bit bigger margin over NBC5 among 25-to-54-year-olds. That kept the early morning news race still very much in play, with all three stations having a fighting chance to win in one measurement or the other -- or both.

The 5 p.m. races also went to WFAA8, as did the 6 p.m. competition in total homes. But the Peacock dropped a tail feather in WFAA8's soup by winning by one-tenth of a rating point at 6 p.m. in the 25-to-54 demo. That's a difference of just 2,945 viewers.
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