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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Mon., May 25-28) -- Rangers, Rangers, Rangers, Rangers

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom
Four straight sellouts. Four straight wins. Four straight dominating days in the D-FW Nielsens.

The Texas Rangers ranked as the most-watched TV attraction throughout the Memorial Day weekend, during which they swept the Blue Jays and then won game one of their home series against Seattle.

That's unprecedented prosperity for the North Texas Nine -- at least during the regular season.

Friday night's game on TXA21 averaged 291,286 viewers, nearly doubling the crowd for CBS' runner-up Blue Bloods rerun (155,804 viewers).

Saturday's elongated afternoon game on Fox Sports Southwest, climaxed by Josh Hamilton's walk-off home run, drew 189,675 viewers after a slow start that peaked as high as 338,705 viewers during extra innings. ABC's prime-time Game 7 of the Boston-Philadelphia playoff series came in second with an overall average of 162,578 viewers.

The Sunday afternoon Rangers-Blue Jays game on FSS averaged 237,094 viewers. TNT's first game of the Spurs-Thunder Western Conference finals made it close with 223,545 viewers in prime-time. CBS' final round of The Colonial limped in with 74,515 viewers.

The Rangers' Memorial Day win over Seattle had a nighttime FSS crowd of 318,383 viewers. ESPN's directly competing Game 1 of the Miami-Boston Eastern Conference finals was no match with 149,030 viewers. In the Big Four broadcast network arena. NBC's America's Got Talent was tops with 189,675 viewers. Again, a comparative pittance compared to the Rangers.

All of D-FW's major local news providers took designated holiday knees on Memorial Day, save for WFAA8. So need to report the outcomes.

In Friday's deflated local news derby results, CBS11 ran first at 10 p.m. in total viewers but NBC5 won among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

The other competitions were sweeps, with Fox4 running the table at 6 a.m. and WFAA8 doing likewise at 5 and 6 p.m.