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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs., April 5)

By ED BARK
How important are the early morning shows to a D-FW station's profit picture?

Consider this: Despite finishing second in homes from 6 to 7 a.m. Thursday, NBC5's waker-upper had a larger audience (102,340 homes) than any of NBC's prime-time comedies that night. And none of them were repeats. The largest draw, Scrubs, lured 61,880 homes. The least-watched, Andy Barker, P.I., had 42,840 homes.

Add the fact that NBC5 collects all the ad revenue with homegrown programming, but only a smidgen from network fare.

Fox4, which narrowly won the early morning competition Thursday, is even more flush from 7 to 9 a.m. Its locally produced Good Day once again beat all the network morning shows. That's two hours worth of locally sold ads on Good Day compared to just a small "window" of local commercials airing during NBC's Today, ABC's Good Morning America and CBS' The Early Show.

In prime-time, Fox's biggest new hit, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, edged Survivor: Fiji and an Ugly Betty repeat in homes while thumping NBC's The Office and 30 Rock. Smarter also won among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds.

A special 10:30 p.m. episode of House, reprised after Fox4 wiped out Tuesday's prime-time hour with tornado warning coverage, drew a very smallish 38,080 homes. In contrast, Fox4's 6 to 7 a.m. portion of Good Day attracted 104,720 homes.

Over on Fox Sports Southwest, the prime-time puck-off between the Dallas Stars and Columbus Blue Jackets had an ice cold .3 Nielsen rating (7,140 homes).

The local news derby went like this:

CBS11 made a rare trip to the winner's circle at 10 p.m., narrowly beating NBC5 and Belo8 in homes after capitalizing on a decent lead-in from a new episode of CBS' preceding Shark. But the Peacock handily prevailed with 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 won at 6 a.m. in both ratings measurements, with Belo8 doing likewise at 5 p.m.

Belo8 and NBC5 split first place finishes at 6 p.m., with the ABC stations tops in homes and the Peacock winning among 25-to-54-year-olds.
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