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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., April 22)

By ED BARK
As the Mavs' midnight hour nears, their ratings slide accordingly.

Tuesday night's horror show in New Orleans drew 114,473 D-FW homes on TXA21 and added another 51,148 on TNT, with both telecasts in HD. That's a combined 165,621 homes, well short of the 215,219 tuned to Saturday night's opener on TXA21 and ESPN.

Both games had early 6 p.m. start times, but Tuesday's (which ended at 8:35 p.m.) had tougher competition from Fox's American Idol at 7 p.m. and then the first half-hour of ABC's Dancing with the Stars results show.

Idol drew 299,579 homes to again lead all Tuesday programming. Dancing, with Marlee Matlin sent home, had 258,174 homes overall.

Fox's juggernaut again ruled among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds, but Dancing ran second in that demographic against Fox's competing Hell's Kitchen. The 9 p.m. hour was dominated in both ratings measurements ABC's Boston Legal.

Over in the cable universe, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC devoted their prime-time hours to Pennsylvania's Democratic presidential primary, handily won by Hillary Clinton.

CNN won all three hours, averaging 32,475 D-FW homes from 7 to 10 p.m. FNC drew 22,732 homes, barely holding off MSNBC (21,108 homes).

Feasting on an already nice-sized Boston Legal lead-in, WFAA8's 10 p.m. newscast improved on it by 46,276 homes to crush its three rivals. The ABC station added another win among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

The early morning remains a battleground, though, with NBC5's 6 a.m. newscast again showing it could be a factor in the looming May "sweeps" competition, which starts on Thursday.

The Peacock nipped Fox4 in the total homes race by one-tenth of a rating point (2,436 homes) and lost by just two-tenths of a point to Fox4 among 25-to-54-year-olds. WFAA8, also certain to be a contender, was close behind in third place.

WFAA8 took the 5 p.m. competition in both ratings measurements and also prevailed at 6 p.m. in the 25-to-54 demo. Fox4 had the 5 p.m. gold among 25-to-54-year-olds.