Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs., July 28) -- CNN wins big on Dem's closing night

Hill and Bill ride again at close of convention. Photo: Ed Bark
By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
The Democrats went into “overtime” for the fourth straight night of their convention, with presidential nominee Hillary Clinton winding up her speech at 10:27 p.m.

She started at 9:30 p.m., leaving Hillary 18 minutes shy of Donald Trump’s 75-minute acceptance speech on the climactic night of last week’s Republican convention. As they did on the three previous nights, ABC, CBS and NBC started their convention telecasts at 9 p.m. while the cable news networks and PBS had full prime-time coverage.

CNN dominated the convention ratings Thursday night in both total D-FW viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming). As it did for Trump’s finishing touches, Fox4 broke away from its 9 p.m. local newscast to air Hillary’s speech in its entirety.

Here are D-FW’s convention ratings from 9 to 10:30 p.m. in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds. (Fox4’s numbers are only for the 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. hour in which the station covered the Democratic nominee’s closing remarks.)

Total Viewers
CNN -- 177,060
MSNBC -- 113,318
NBC -- 106,236
PBS -- 84,989
ABC -- 70,824
Fox News Channel/Fox4 -- 56,659 apiece
CBS -- 49,577

25-to-54-Year-Olds
CNN -- 95,242
NBC -- 50,597
MSNBC -- 38,692
PBS -- 32,739
ABC -- 29,763
CBS -- 23,810
Fox4 -- 20,834
Fox News Channel -- 17,858

The combined numbers for the Democrats’ closing night add up to 715,322 total viewers and 300,535 in the 25-to-54 age range. In both cases, Night 4 of the Republicans nipped the Democrats in D-FW with respective totals of 722,104 and 303,583 viewers.

On Fox Sports Southwest, the Texas Rangers’ 3-2 home win over Oakland drew 127,483 total viewers.

Here are Thursday’s local news derby numbers, with the 10 p.m. editions once again omitted due to convention overruns.

For the first time during convention week, a station other than Fox4 or NBC5 broke through for a ratings victory. TEGNA8 edged the Peacock for the most 25-to-54-year-olds at 6 p.m.

Otherwise, Fox4 again ran the table at 6 a.m. while NBC5 swept the 5 p.m. competitions and had the most total viewers at 6 p.m.

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