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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Mon., Feb. 15-18) -- Walking Dead domination

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom
This is pretty remarkable.

On the night of the NBA All-Star game and the shocking Season 3 finale of Downton Abbey, AMC's 8 p.m. new episode of The Walking Dead splattered both of them while also ranking as Sunday's most-watched TV attraction at any hour of the day or night.

Walking Dead drew 275,368 D-FW viewers, with a huge percentage of them (197,743) in the advertiser-prized 18-to-49 demographic.

Downton, airing directly opposite Walking Dead on PBS, had 172,105 viewers with 22,326 in the 18-to-49-age range.

The 8 to 9 p.m. portion of the All-Star game on TNT had 158,337 total viewers; 92,493 of them were 18-to-49-year-olds. That's a very solid share of this key demographic, but still less than half the audience that Walking Dead had.

In Monday's prime-time Nielsens, Fox's The Following held strong and won its time slot in total viewers at 8 p.m. with 234,063. But it fell to a fairly close overall fourth among 18-to-49-year-olds. ABC's second hour of The Bachelor led the way with 108,440, followed by CBS' 2 Broke Girls (92,493 from 8 to 8:30 p.m.) and NBC's The Biggest Loser (105,250 from 8:30 to 9 p.m.) The Following averaged 86,114 for its full hour.

ABC's 9 p.m. episode of Castle won in both total viewers and 18-to-49-year-olds.

On TNT, the 8 p.m. fifth episode of Dallas drew 130,800 total viewers, with 44,652 in the 18-to-49 demographic. Both are improvements from the previous Monday's numbers.

D magazine and its first two hours of weekday morning programming on KTXD-TV (Ch. 47) came up empty from 9 to 11 a.m. Monday. According to Nielsen, both D: The Broadcast and D Living registered "hashmarks" (no measurable audience) in total viewers and 18-to-49-year-olds.

The station's other homegrown product, The Texas Daily, also had hashmarks at 6 p.m. before drawing 2,754 total viewers for its 9:30 p.m. encore.

Here are the local news derby results for Friday and Monday.

CBS11 paced Friday's total viewer numbers at 10 p.m. while WFAA8 nipped Fox4 among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 rang up another doubleheader win at 6 a.m., where it remains unbeaten throughout 2013. WFAA8 and CBS11 tied for the most total viewers at 6 p.m., but WFAA8 had the most 25-to-54-year-olds at that hour while also sweeping the 5 p.m. competitions.

On Monday, Fox4, NBC5 and CBS11 all took a Presidents' Day knee at 6 a.m. Only WFAA8 counted its numbers, and logged the third most viewers in both measurements. But its rivals won't be including Feb. 18th in their 6 a.m. February "sweeps" averages.

Everyone otherwise played for keeps at 5, 6 and 10 p.m. WFAA8 fared the best, sweeping the 6 and 10 p.m. faceoffs. Fox4 did likewise at 5 p.m.
unclebarky@verizon.net