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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., April 13-15) -- Idol again drowned out by competing music special

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
On Easter Sunday night, it was NBC’s live Jesus Christ Superstar rising above ABC’s American Idol reboot in the D-FW Nielsens.

Two Sundays later, CBS’ three-hour Academy of Country Music awards, hosted by Reba McEntire, sent Idol down for the count.

The ACMs averaged 370,349 viewers from 7 to 10 p.m., with 87,377 in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic for those three hours.

Idol, which again ran from 7 to 9 p.m., limped in with 142,442 total viewers and 40,568 in the 18-to-49 realm.

On ABC, George Stephanopoulos’s 9 p.m. interview with fired FBI director James Comey did solid business with 220,785 total viewers and 53,050 in the 18-to-49 realm.

It was a busy night in the cable universe, too. AMC’s 8 p.m. season finale of The Walking Dead, now something of a dead man walking compared to its once dominant ratings, pulled in 170,930 total viewers in the 8 p.m. hour. It had 87,377 viewers in the key 18-to-49-year-old measurement, the same as the ACMs overall. But the country music shebang won from 8 to 9 p.m. opposite Walking Dead with a higher draw of 93,618 viewers.

AMC’s 9 p.m. season premiere of Fear the Walking Dead then dropped to 78,343 total viewers and 40,568 in the 18-to-49 motherlode.

Over on ESPN, ropy poly, 44-year-old Texas Rangers pitcher Bartolo Colon astonishingly had a perfect game for seven innings against the world champion Houston Astros on their field. Interest peaked to the tune of 142,442 total viewers between 8:45 and 9:15 p.m. After Colon gave up a walk, a hit and a run, the ratings quickly dropped to less than half that crowd for the rest of the game, which the Rangers won 3-1 in 10 innings.

TNT’s closely fought Houston Rockets-Minnesota Timberwolves playoff game hit a higher peak audience of 178,053 total viewers between 9:30 and 9:45 p.m.

Friday’s prime-time pacesetter in total viewers again was CBS’ Blue Bloods with 213,663 in its regular 9 p.m. slot. NBC’s Taken, Fox’s Masterchef Junior and Fox4’s local 9 p.m. newscast tied for the prime-time lead among 18-to-49ers with 37,447 apiece.

Finally, here are Friday’s four-way local news derby results.

Capitalizing on the Blue Bloods lead-in, CBS11 enjoyed its most dominating win in recent memory among total viewers at 10 p.m. But Fox4 ran first with 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 also lapped up the rest of the gravy, sweeping the 6 a.m. and 5 and 6 p.m. competitions.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net