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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., Feb. 6)

By ED BARK
American Idol's audition edition from San Antonio predictably rolled to a lopsided win in the D-FW Nielsens Tuesday night. The bigger news, though, is the continued ratings surge by Fox4's 9 p.m. local newscast.

It helps to have two strong winds at your back -- Idol and the following House. Still, Fox4's prime-time news is prospering as never before against firstrun entertainment programming on rival networks. Tuesday's edition finished a strong second in homes, just three-tenths of a rating point (7,140 homes) behind NBC's potent Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

But Fox4 swept to first place finishes at 9 p.m. in the younger demographics that matter most to advertisers. It was tops among 25-to-54-year-olds, 18-to-49-year-olds and even 18-to-34-year-olds, not generally known for being heavy TV news consumers. In fact it wasn't even close. The Fox4 newscast drew 51,408 viewers in the 18-to-34 demographic, with runnerup Law & Order managing just 28,305 of them. ABC's Boston Legal and CBS' The Unit respectively placed third and fourth.

Fox4's 10 p.m. news also benefited a bit, placing third ahead of CBS11 in both homes and with 25-to-54-year-olds, the key advertiser target for news programming. NBC5's late night newscast finished first in both measurements.

Fox4 likewise won the hotly contested 6 a.m. bout in homes and among 25-to-54-year-olds. Belo8 again controlled the 5 and 6 p.m. news competitions.

For the record, Idol drew 414,120 homes, easily more than doubling the crowd for any competing attraction. House kept 311,780 of those homes to also overwhelm the competition at 8 p.m.
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