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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Tues., Feb. 15-19) -- catchup round

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Let’s first rewind back to Sunday night’s NBA All-Star game, in which the Dallas Mavericks’ Dirk Nowitzki hit all three of his three-point attempts before sitting out the second half and not tempting fate.

Team LeBron’s comeback win over Team Giannis, carried on both TNT and TBS, ran from 7:34 to 9:53 p.m. The game averaged 175,733 D-FW viewers on TNT and tacked on another 14,059 for the TBS coverage. That’s a grand total of 189,792 viewers, which is a substantial increase over last year’s 135,320 viewers.

Asterisk alert: The 2018 All-Star game aired opposite NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage. So let’s go back to 2017, when the NBA’s high-scoring playground game shot air balls with just 116,338 total viewers.

But there’s this, too. The 2014 NBA All-Star game, which also went directly against the Winter Olympics, soared with 220,140 total viewers. Through that prism, the 2019 game wasn’t so hot after all -- although it did outdraw the 2017 and 2018 games.

However one looks at it, the NBA is still professional sports’ golden boy -- percentage-wise -- among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds. Sunday’s game drew 72,461 viewers in this age range on TNT and another 9,058 on TBS. That’s a combined 81,519, up from the 76,970 for 2017’s game. On the other hand, the percentage of 18-to-49-year-olds for the 2019 game is a notable drop-off from 2017. I know. My head’s swimming, too.

Saturday night’s All-Star preliminaries -- skills, 3-point contest, dunks -- drew 133,557 total viewers for the TNT presentation. The 18-to-49-year-old count was 57,365 viewers. Both Dirk and the Mavs’ Luka Doncic were participants, but neither made the finals.

OK, let’s fast-forward to Tuesday’s prime-time numbers, in which CBS’ NCIS as usual hauled in the most total viewers with 316,319. The network’s FBI and NCIS: New Orleans also won their time slots in this measurement.

Among 18-to-49ers, the 7 to 10 p.m. winners were Fox’s Lethal Weapon, NBC’s This Is Us and Fox4’s 9 p.m. local newscast.

Monday’s prime-time parade was paced by NBC’s America’s Got Talent: The Champions in total viewers (302,260), with CBS’ 9 p.m. episode of Bull coming in second for the night with 224,938. The top draw in the 18-to-49 realm, ABC’s 7 to 9 p.m. edition of The Bachelor, smelled like a rose with 60,384.

On to Friday night, where CBS’ 9 p.m. hour of Blue Bloods again led all attractions in total viewers (253,055) while Fox’s 9 p.m. local news took the 18-to-49 crown with 42,269.

Fox’s 8 p.m. premiere of Proven Innocent ran second in its time slot among the Big Four broadcast networks with 18,115 viewers of the 18-to-49 persuasion. It likewise took the runner-up spot in total viewers with 119,498. The 8 to 9 p.m. winners were CBS’ Hawaii Five-0 in total viewers and NBC’s Blacklist among 18-to-49-year-olds.

OK, whaddya say, let’s move on to the local news derby results for the 12th, 13th and 14th weekdays of the February “sweeps,” which end on Wednesday, Feb. 27th.

Friday -- CBS11 won in total viewers at 10 p.m. while WFAA8 ran first with 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 swept the 6 a.m. competitions while NBC5 had twin wins at 5 p.m and WFAA8 ran the table at 6 p.m.

Monday -- Just two stations, WFAA8 and CBS11, played for keeps while Fox4 and NBC5 opted for President’s Day exemptions that “throw out” their local news ratings for this day only.

In this two player field, WFAA8 outdrew CBS11 in everything except total viewers at 10 p.m., where the latter station is on a roll and likely to repeat as the sweeps champ after an upset win in November.

Tuesday -- CBS11 again led in total viewers at 10 p.m., with Fox4 winning among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Fox4 had twin wins at 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. while also taking the top spot among 25-to-54-year-olds at 6 p.m. NBC5 and WFAA8 tied for the most total viewers at 6 p.m.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net