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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Mon., Sept. 9) -- Monday Night Football dominates on big day of premieres

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
On an eventful day of premieres, old standby Monday Night Football scored highest with a doubleheader showcase.

The return of MNF to ESPN kicked off with an Eagles-Redskins matchup that averaged 399,284 D-FW viewers. Philadelphia’s new, frenetic offense dominated until some late-breaking Washington touchdowns made the score a misleadingly respectable 33-27 in favor of the Eagles.

<>MNF’s following Houston-San Diego game, which didn’t start until shortly before 9:30 p.m., then averaged 316,673 viewers in dominating the late night ratings. In this one, the Texans overcame a 28-7 second half deficit to beat the Chargers 31-28.

On Fox Sports Southwest, the still punchless Texas Rangers returned home to be shut out 1-0 by the resurgent Pittsburgh Pirates. A relatively small crowd of 144,578 viewers stayed the course during one of the quicker-played games of the season.

The non-sports world also had ample activity. NBC’s premiere of its multi-night Million Second Quiz -- hosted by Ryan Seacrest -- won the 7 p.m. slot among the Big Four Broadcast networks with 199,642 viewers. But its performance among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds was appreciably less promising. A repeat of ABC’s “Shark Week”-themed Shark Tank won in that measurement with 57,409 viewers while Million Second Quiz had 44,652.

At 10 p.m., the second coming of The Arsenio Hall Show, with CW33 the carrier in D-FW, more than tripled the audience of the station’s preceding Nightcap comedy news programming. But Arsenio still ran fifth in the broadcast network universe with 61,958 total viewers.

Among 18-to-49-year-olds, though, the second half of Arsenio beat the first half-hours of both ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live and NBC’s Tonight Show while a U.S. Open tennis overrun knocked CBS’ prime-time programming for a loop. The network’s Under the Dome didn’t start until 9:30 p.m., pushing CBS11’s 10 p.m. newscast roughly a half-hour deeper into the night. For good measure, Arsenio also nipped CBS11’s news and beat Fox4 and NBC5 for the entire 10 to 11 p.m. hour in the key 18-to-49 demographic.

WFAA8 also launched its first-ever 4 p.m. local newscast Monday. The opening day results were mixed.

NBC5’s established 4 p.m. newscast handily won the hour with 117,031 total viewers to WFAA8’s 61,958. Fox4’s 4:30 p.m. episode of Judge Judy also had more viewers than WFAA8’s new anchor duo of Jason Wheeler and Colleen Coyle. CBS11’s 4 p.m. local newscast was rubbed out by U.S. Open tennis coverage, which had 48,189 viewers for the 4 to 5 p.m. portion.

Among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming, WFAA8’s 4 p.m. opener trailed only NBC5. The results were the same among 18-to-49-year-olds, with the first half-hour of Judge Judy registering “hashmarks” (no measurable audience) according to Nielsen Media Research.

OK, let’s get to Monday’s four-way local news derby results (although network overruns dealt out the 5, 6 and 10 p.m. editions on CBS11).

WFAA8 swept the 10 p.m. competitions with wins in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds. Both 6 p.m. golds likewise went to WFAA8, which notched an additional win by nipping Fox4 in total viewers at 6 a.m.

Fox4 had a paper-thin win at 6 a.m. in the 25-to-54 demographic while NBC5 rode the strength of its 4 p.m. newscast to a 5 p.m. sweep.

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