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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Mon., Jan. 9) -- another drop for college football capper

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Monday’s Clemson-Alabama rematch, a down-to-the-last second thriller, nonetheless fell a bit short of last year’s high-scoring Crimson Tide win in the D-FW ratings.

Clemson’s 35-31 victory, avenging a 45-40 loss in the 2016 national college championship game, stretched from 7:18 to 11:28 p.m. on ESPN. Maybe that again was part of the problem. College football games, particularly the post-season ones, seem to last from here to eternity. So the audience began dropping at the midsection Monday night, with the game finally averaging an overall 647,128 D-FW viewers and 259,775 in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic.

Last year’s game drew 658,663 total viewers and 279,462 in the 18-to-49 age range. In comparison, Sunday’s Green Bay Packers-New York Giants playoff game on Fox drew twice as many total viewers in D-FW as either Clemson-Alabama championship match.

The 2015 finale, staged at Jerry’s Palace in Arlington as the first championship game under the current “Final Four” format, dwarfed both Alabama-Clemson games. Ohio State’s rout of Oregon averaged 850,828 total viewers and 400,533 in the key 18-to-49-year-old realm. Local audiences obviously were pumped up somewhat by the North Texas locale for the game.

Elsewhere in prime-time, Fox4’s 9 p.m. local newscast ranked as Monday’s second biggest TV attraction with 167,235 total viewers. ABC’s two-hour edition of The Bachelor was the runner-up among 18-to-49-year-olds (70,556).

Here are Monday’s local news derby results.

Fox4 won at 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

TEGNA8 swept the 6 p.m. competitions and NBC5 did likewise at 5 p.m.

TV NEWS NOTE -- In a downsizing that further diminishes the overall product, CBS is eliminating its regional Newspath offices in Dallas, Chicago and Charlotte. It will mean an overall loss of about 10 full-time jobs, according to sources. Most are veteran staffers. Expenses were cited. Operations now will be centralized out of New York.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net