Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., April 23-25) -- down 'n' dirty 'n' dead(?)
04/27/10 09:19 AM
By ED BARK
The Dallas Mavericks' twin street fights in San Antonio, both ending in bad news losses, had ample miserable company on Friday and Sunday nights.
Sunday's Game 4 of the NBA playoffs, which started shortly after 6 p.m., drew 142,512 D-FW viewers for the homegrown telecast on TXA21 and had 169,658 for TNT's presentation. Hand calculator technology says that's a grand total of 312,170 viewers.
Friday's later-starting game, which began at about 8:45 p.m., grabbed 156,085 viewers on TXA21 and 223,948 viewers on ESPN for a combined 380,033 viewers. That makes it the second most-watched game so far, well behind the 515,759 viewers who watched the series opener on TXA21 and TNT. Sunday's game so far is the least-watched.
All four Mavs-Spurs matchups have drawn bigger audiences on cable than on TXA21, where Mark Followill, Bob Ortegel and Jeff "Skin" Wade have provided the usual Dallas spin. On Sunday night, though, even Ortegel agreed that Mavs' sub Eduardo Najera was rightly ejected for grabbing the Spurs' Manu Ginobili by the neck as he drove for a layup. He already has a broken nose sustained in Game 3.
(Your friendly content provider now veers briefly off the ratings track to say that the Mavericks still have a fighting chance to win this series despite being down 3-1. The team at least implanted a manhood gene Sunday night, playing rough and tough while still being not quite good enough.
Then again, can Mavs coach Rick Carlisle work the refs the way the Spurs' very wily Gregg Popovich can? No. Is he the equal of Popovich in gearing his team up? No. And what if the Mavs' nemesis, Joey Crawford, saunters in as crew chief for any of the remaining games?
Still, Dallas can do it. Namely, come back from the near-dead to win three in a row. So that's the far-fetched prediction because I think this team is made of stronger stuff than they've had in a while. Go ahead, laugh.)
Back to the weekend ratings, where Friday's season finale of ABC's Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution managed to beat the 8 p.m. competition on CBS, Fox and NBC. But it didn't have quite enough heat in the kitchen to outdraw the second hour of MY27's WWE Smackdown!, which will be moving to cable's syfy channel next season.
In Friday's local news derby results, NBC5 and WFAA8 tied for first in total viewers at 10 p.m., but the Peacock prevailed among 25-to-54-year-olds, the favored target audience for news programming.
NBC5 won at 6 a.m. in total viewers but Fox4 won by a hair among 25-to-54-year-olds.
CBS11 joined the winner's circle with a win in total viewers at 6 p.m., with Fox4 tops in the 25-to-54 age range.
The Peacock and WFAA8 shared the total viewer golds at 5 p.m., where Fox4 again had the most 25-to-54-year-olds.
WFAA8 fell into an abyss at 6 p.m., drawing just 47,504 total viewers in finishing a very distant fourth. It also cratered badly with 25-to-54-year-olds, where Nielsen says that a competing MY27 rerun of My Name Is Earl also had more viewers in this age group than WFAA8's local news.
The Dallas Mavericks' twin street fights in San Antonio, both ending in bad news losses, had ample miserable company on Friday and Sunday nights.
Sunday's Game 4 of the NBA playoffs, which started shortly after 6 p.m., drew 142,512 D-FW viewers for the homegrown telecast on TXA21 and had 169,658 for TNT's presentation. Hand calculator technology says that's a grand total of 312,170 viewers.
Friday's later-starting game, which began at about 8:45 p.m., grabbed 156,085 viewers on TXA21 and 223,948 viewers on ESPN for a combined 380,033 viewers. That makes it the second most-watched game so far, well behind the 515,759 viewers who watched the series opener on TXA21 and TNT. Sunday's game so far is the least-watched.
All four Mavs-Spurs matchups have drawn bigger audiences on cable than on TXA21, where Mark Followill, Bob Ortegel and Jeff "Skin" Wade have provided the usual Dallas spin. On Sunday night, though, even Ortegel agreed that Mavs' sub Eduardo Najera was rightly ejected for grabbing the Spurs' Manu Ginobili by the neck as he drove for a layup. He already has a broken nose sustained in Game 3.
(Your friendly content provider now veers briefly off the ratings track to say that the Mavericks still have a fighting chance to win this series despite being down 3-1. The team at least implanted a manhood gene Sunday night, playing rough and tough while still being not quite good enough.
Then again, can Mavs coach Rick Carlisle work the refs the way the Spurs' very wily Gregg Popovich can? No. Is he the equal of Popovich in gearing his team up? No. And what if the Mavs' nemesis, Joey Crawford, saunters in as crew chief for any of the remaining games?
Still, Dallas can do it. Namely, come back from the near-dead to win three in a row. So that's the far-fetched prediction because I think this team is made of stronger stuff than they've had in a while. Go ahead, laugh.)
Back to the weekend ratings, where Friday's season finale of ABC's Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution managed to beat the 8 p.m. competition on CBS, Fox and NBC. But it didn't have quite enough heat in the kitchen to outdraw the second hour of MY27's WWE Smackdown!, which will be moving to cable's syfy channel next season.
In Friday's local news derby results, NBC5 and WFAA8 tied for first in total viewers at 10 p.m., but the Peacock prevailed among 25-to-54-year-olds, the favored target audience for news programming.
NBC5 won at 6 a.m. in total viewers but Fox4 won by a hair among 25-to-54-year-olds.
CBS11 joined the winner's circle with a win in total viewers at 6 p.m., with Fox4 tops in the 25-to-54 age range.
The Peacock and WFAA8 shared the total viewer golds at 5 p.m., where Fox4 again had the most 25-to-54-year-olds.
WFAA8 fell into an abyss at 6 p.m., drawing just 47,504 total viewers in finishing a very distant fourth. It also cratered badly with 25-to-54-year-olds, where Nielsen says that a competing MY27 rerun of My Name Is Earl also had more viewers in this age group than WFAA8's local news.