Idol opener propels Fox4 to prime-time sweep | None | Uncle Barky's Bytes

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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., Jan. 13) -- Season 8 Idol opener propels Fox4 to prime-time sweep

By ED BARK
Here we go again. American Idol's two-hour return crunched all opposition Tuesday night, although CBS' NCIS fought its way to a solid second place finish in the 7 p.m. hour.

The Fox juggernaut, which devoted its entire opener to auditions in Phoenix, averaged 637,728 D-FW viewers overall, with more than half of them -- 330,602 -- in the advertiser-craved 18-to-49 age range.

Idol's first hour had 577,941 total viewers opposite a game NCIS (438,438 viewers). Idol then built to 697,515 viewers from 8 to 9 p.m., with CBS' The Mentalist far back with 405,223 viewers.

Left for dead opposite Idol were NBC's two-hour The Biggest Loser (146,146 viewers) and ABC's trio of Homeland Security USA (132,860 viewers) and two Scrubs episodes (106,288 and 119,574 viewers).

Fox4's 9 p.m. local newscast fell sharply from its bounteous Idol lead-in, but still won its time slot with 318,864 viewers. It also beat all rival programs in the 18-to-49 demographic. That's an impressive showing opposite venerables such as NBC's Law & Order: SVU and CBS' Without A Trace.

In the local news derby, WFAA8 again prevailed at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 returned to the winner's circle at 6 a.m. in total viewers, but NBC5 topped the field among 25-to-54-year-olds.

The Peacock swept the 5 p.m. news competitions, where it's been running strong of late. At 6 p.m. the golds were shared by WFAA8 in total viewers and Fox4 in the 25-to-54 demo, where it won for the second straight day in a time slot that long has been dominated by WFAA8.
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