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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., Jan. 20) -- Inauguration nation

By ED BARK
Barack Obama's inauguration and first speech as the 44th U.S. president were watched in many ways, shapes and forms Tuesday. In D-FW, here are the old-school TV viewing numbers from 11 to 11:30 a.m.:

ABC (Ch. 8) -- 259,077 viewers
CBS (Ch. 11) and NBC (Ch. 5) -- 152,783 viewers apiece
Fox (Ch. 4) -- 146,146 viewers
CNN -- 139,503 viewers
Univision (Ch. 23) -- 73,073 viewers
Fox News Channel -- 66,430 viewers
MSNBC -- 63,109 viewers
PBS (Ch. 13) -- 21,258 viewers
CNBC -- "hashmarks" (no measurable audience)

That's a grand total of 1,074,162 viewers on these 10 channels. Both of Sunday's NFL championship games also had a bit over one million viewers on single networks, although many potential inauguration viewers were otherwise occupied during working hours Tuesday.

In prime-time, ABC's two-hour exclusive telecast of the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball averaged 425,152 viewers from 7 to 9 p.m. That was good enough to beat all competing programming except Fox's American Idol, which led prime time's parade with 478,296 viewers opposite the first hour of ABC's special (391,937 viewers). Idol dropped significantly from last Tuesday's Season 8 launch, which had 637,728 viewers.

CBS' one-hour inauguration wrapup ran fourth in the 8 p.m. hour with 159,432 viewers. ABC won the 9 p.m. hour with its followup inauguration news special (325,507 viewers), outpointing CBS' competing repeat of The Mentalist (285,649 viewers). NBC's 9 p.m. inauguration special had 132,860 viewers, edging Fox4's local 9 p.m. newscast for third place from 9 to 10 p.m.

In local news derby results, WFAA8 took the 10 p.m. golds in total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 swept the 6 a.m. competitions and WFAA8 did likewise at 5 p.m. The local 6 p.m. newscasts on NBC5, WFAA8 and CBS11 were wiped out by their networks' extended national news editions. ABC's World News had the most viewers.