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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., March 30) -- V's not for victory

By ED BARK
ABC's mega-hyped return of V, after several months off the air, had less than out-of-this-world ratings in D-FW.

Preceded by a new episode of Lost, the aliens-among-us drama drew 169,658 viewers to run third at 9 p.m. behind NBC's Parenthood (196,803 viewers) and Fox4's 9 p.m. local newscast (190,016 viewers). It did, however, beat a repeat of CBS' The Good Wife (128,940 viewers).

V fared better with advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, tying Parenthood for the 9 p.m. top spot. All in all, though, not a great showing. And Good Wife will be back with a new episode next Tuesday.

ABC also chose to smudge up TV screens with a very annoying "V: They Return" countdown clock positioned in the bottom right hand corner during much of Lost. At one point, the onerous promo partially obscured a printed notepad response from Sun Kwon, who at least temporarily has forgotten to speak English after a bonk on the head.

Lost is hard enough to follow without an attention-diverting "bug" on the screen. Was anyone else really pissed off by this?

Elsewhere in prime-time, Fox's American Idol commanded the 7 to 9 p.m. ratings with 488,614 total viewers for its weekly two-hour performance show. Pulling in second were ABC's Dancing with the Stars results show (312,170 viewers) and Lost (278,238 viewers).

Dancing's first evictee was Shannen Doherty, with Pamela Anderson surviving a Bottom 2 scare. Apparently Anderson is viewed as a bit too slutty for Dancing's now predominantly older audience. She scored well with judges, though. And the show's producers would have turned a whiter shade of pale had she been the first evictee.

Against all of this heavy-duty competition, TXA21's "First In Prime" local newscast continues to struggle mightily. The 7 p.m. hour had just 6,108 total viewers Tuesday, with the 8 p.m. portion inching up to 10,858 viewers in a viewing area of about 6.8 million. Little CW33's 9 p.m. local newscast was a comparative Goliath, with 50,219 viewers.

In Tuesday's four-way local news derby, NBC5 swept the 10 p.m. competitions, edging WFAA8 and Fox4 in total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

The Peacock also notched another doubleheader win at 6 a.m. while also taking first place at 5 p.m. in total viewers.

Second place Fox4 again soared from 7 to 9 a.m., though, where its Good Day beat the three network morning shows in both ratings measurements. The victory margin was especially impressive among 25-to-54-year-olds, with Good Day drawing more viewers than Today, GMA and Early Show combined.

WFAA8 won at 6 p.m. in total viewers while also besting Fox4 by a negligible one hundredth of a rating point among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Fox4 prevailed at 5 p.m. in the 25-to-54 demographic.
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