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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs., March 15)

By ED BARK
CBS' first day and night of the NCAA basketball tournament dribbled into view Thursday, playing to relatively small crowds in D-FW.

The highest-rated attraction, Indiana vs. Gonzaga, averaged 133,280 homes in prime-time and latenight. That made for an overall third place finish opposite combos of ABC's new October Road and Belo8's 10 p.m. news, and NBC's premiere of Raines followed by the Peacock's local newscast.

The daytime games, featuring Texas teams, battled various talk shows, soap operas, game shows and court shows. Texas Tech's loss to Boston College averaged 42,840 homes to place third overall in competition with ABC's All My Children and Belo8's midday newscast, and a batch of court shows on TXA21.

Texas A&M's victory over Pennsylvania lured 45,220 homes, also placing third. The game couldn't even beat Fox4's The Montel Williams Show in total homes.

Both Tech and A&M fared better with advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds. The Red Raiders narrowly won the time slot with those viewers while the Aggies had a solid No. 2 finish. It's not as though 18-to-49-year-olds watched in droves, though. Tech corralled 30,000 of 'em, and A&M had 36,000.

At 7 p.m. a new episode of ABC's Ugly Betty topped the time period in both homes and with 18-to-49-year-olds. Fox's hot new game show, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, ran second in homes and third with 18-to-49-year-olds, where it also finished behind The CW's Smallville.

Nationally, though, 5th Grader placed a solid first in both Nielsen measurements. Fox says it also was the network's most-watched show in the Thursday leadoff spot since a Nov. 12, 1998 edition of World's Wildest Police Videos.

Later in prime-time, here's how Thursday's three series premieres fared in the D-FW Nielsens:

***NBC's Andy Barker, P.I. (8:30 p.m. -- 4th in homes and tied for fourth with Fox's Family Guy among 18-to-49-year-olds.
***ABC's October Road (9 p.m.) -- 1st in homes and with 18-to-49-year-olds following a big lead-in push from Grey's Anatomy.
***NBC's Raines (9 p.m.) -- 2nd in both measurements.

On the local newscast front, Belo8 had a 10 p.m. win in homes but NBC5 placed a comfortable first with 25-to-54-yar-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. Interestingly, the Peacock won with younger anchors Brian Curtis and Meredith Land subbing for Mike Snyder and Jane McGarry.

Fox4 took first at 6 a.m. and tied for the top spot with Belo8 in the 25-54 demo.

Belo8 won in both audience measurements at 6 p.m., and also in homes at 5 p.m. NBC5 took the earlier hour with 25-to-54-year-olds.
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