Lie to Me outdraws Obama news conference, although that's kind of stretching the truth | None | Uncle Barky's Bytes

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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., April 29) -- Lie to Me outdraws Obama news conference, although that's kind of stretching the truth

By ED BARK
Fox's decision to keep Lie to Me in place instead of carrying President Obama's news conference put the first-year series on a ratings upswing Wednesday night.

It obviously didn't beat Obama's overall numbers on a variety of broadcast and cable networks. But on a network by network basis, Lie to Me won its 7 to 8 p.m. time slot in D-FW and also increased its total viewership by 59,787 over last Monday's episode. Here's how it played out, with all networks listed except Fox carrying the one-hour presidential news conference:

Fox (Lie to Me) -- 245,791 viewers
NBC -- 172,718
ABC -- 166,075
Univision -- 159,432
CBS -- 79,716
Fox News Channel -- 46,501
MSNBC -- 39,858
CNN -- 33,215
PBS -- 6,643
CNBC/Fox Business Channel -- "hashmarks" (no measurable audience for Obama news conference)

American Idol as usual had Wednesday's biggest audience. The eviction of Matt Giraud -- and a big scare for prohibitive favorite Adam Lambert, who landed in the Bottom 2 -- drew 465,010 viewers in the 8 p.m. hour to easily beat CBS' competing Criminal Minds (279,006 viewers).

CBS' CSI: NY then edged Fox4's local newscast at 9 p.m. on a news night dominated by Fort Worth's swine flu-fueled surprise decision to shut down its entire public school district until May 11th. But Fox4 dominated the 9 p.m. Nielsens among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, capping off a big ratings night.

In local news derby results, WFAA8 again held the power at 10 p.m., beating runnerup CBS11 in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

At 6 a.m., Fox4 nipped NBC5 by just three-hundredths of a rating point in total viewers, but the Peacock rebounded with a narrow win among 25-to-54-year-olds.

WFAA8 won at 5 and 6 p.m. in total viewers; the 25-to-54-year-old golds went to NBC5 at the earlier hour and Fox4 at 6 p.m.
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