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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., March 18-20) -- "playoff atmosphere" no assist to Mavs-Spurs

By ED BARK
Friday night's Dallas Mavericks-San Antonio Spurs game on Fox Sports Southwest seemingly should have had enough juice to at least win its time slot.

But another hotly competitive game between the NBA's two Texas titans again came up short in the D-FW Nielsens, as did the Mavs on their home court scoreboard.

The game averaged just 90,034 D-FW viewers, falling well short of NBC's competing two-hour Dateline (180,068 viewers) while also narrowly trailing Fox4's local newscast in the 9 p.m. hour. Fox's Fringe also outdrew the Mavs from 8 to 9 p.m.

Sunday night's Mavs rout of the less than imposing Golden State Warriors drew 83,108 viewers to trail all competing programming on the Big Four broadcast networks. That included the 8 p.m. "sneak preview" of ABC's Shark Tank, which had Mavericks owner Mark Cuban as a guest investor. Its 124,663 viewers easily surpassed the Mavs, but Tank otherwise tanked opposite CBS' competing Undercover Boss (283,954 viewers).

In NCAA tournament hoops, Texas' one-point loss to Arizona drew 110,811 viewers Sunday evening on TNT. But the day's most-watched NCAA game locally was Duke's narrow win over Michigan during the afternoon on CBS. It averaged 152,365 viewers.

Uncle Barky's alma mater Wisconsin Badgers also were in action, slipping by Kansas State Saturday night to make the tournament's "Sweet 16." Plucky Bucky averaged 83,108 viewers on TNT. That's approaching Mavs territory.

In local news derby results, NBC5 had a big Friday. The Peacock handily won a down-sized three-way race at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming on most stations. NBC5 likewise ran the table at 6 a.m.

Fox4 controlled most of the early evening competitions, scoring a doubleheader win at 5 p.m. while also placing first at 6 p.m. with 25-to-54-year-olds. WFAA8 had the most total viewers at 6 p.m. CBS11's 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts again were rubbed out by NCAA basketball coverage.
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