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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs., June 18) -- digital numbers still lower overall

By ED BARK
Audiences for D-FW newscasts remained in a bit of a ditch Thursday, with stations drawing smaller crowds digitally than they did a week ago in Analog-ville.

Overall audiences were down at 6 a.m. and 5 and 6 p.m. for the foursome of Fox4, NBC5, WFAA8 and CBS11. The week-to-week 10 p.m. numbers weren't as easily compared because of a June 11th runover of ABC's Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

Let's look 'em over.

At 10 p.m., WFAA8 won in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. Its three competitors all had significantly smaller newscast audiences than on the previous Thursday, even though those ratings likely were deflated by having to go directly against the NBA's Lakers-Magic overtime thriller.

CBS11, which won the downsized three-way 10 p.m. battle on June 11th, dropped from 318,864 total viewers to a second-place 171,718 behind WFAA8 (199,290).

At 6 a.m., NBC5 again swept the field, drawing slightly more total viewers (6,643) than on the previous Thursday. The Peacock had fewer 25-to-54-year-olds, however. And Fox4, WFAA8 and CBS11 all were down week-to-week in both ratings measurements.

All four stations suffered Thursday-to-Thursday ratings declines at both 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.

NBC5 ran the table at 5 p.m., but with ratings well below those of a week ago. In fact, the Peacock's total viewer count (93,002) would have landed it in third place on June 11th.

WFAA8 won at 6 p.m. in total viewers and tied for first place with Fox4 among 25-to-54-year-olds. Again, though, all four stations had smaller audiences than they did a week earlier.

The three network evening newscasts also fell on harder times. ABC's World News led the 5:30 p.m. pack with 106,288 total viewers, followed by the NBC Nightly News (99,645) and the CBS Evening News (73,073 viewers).

On June 11th, those totals were: NBC Nightly News (166,075), ABC's World News (139,503) and the CBS Evening News (79,716).

Thursday's most-watched prime-time program, CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation repeat, drew 186,004 total viewers. It had the same audience the previous week despite having to go against the high-rated NBA Finals in the old analog world.