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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., Sept. 30) -- crime dominates after two comedy premieres show a li'l life

By ED BARK
Wednesday's premieres of Kelsey Grammer's Hank and Patricia Heaton's The Middle made a little noise in prime-time's first hour before D-FW viewers shifted from gags to body bags.

Hank drew a hardly imposing 152,789 viewers in leading off ABC's night of all-first-year series. That was good enough for a gut-it-out win against the first half-hour of Fox's competing So You Think You Can Dance (126,217 viewers). But Dance had the most advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds.

The Middle slipped to 139,503 total viewers in running a close second to Dance (146,146 viewers). Dance again won with 18-to-49-year-olds, with Middle tying CBS' Gary Unmarried for second.

From then on it was something of a blood bath.

CBS' Criminal Minds drew 318,864 total viewers in the 8 p.m. hour, more than doubling the crowd for Fox's runnerup Glee (152,789 viewers). Minds also controlled the minds of 18-to-49-year-olds, but Glee ran a much closer second.

CBS then squashed all comers at 9 p.m., where CSI: NY had Wednesday's overall largest audience of 358,722. The second episode of ABC's Eastwick took a tarnished silver with just 146,146 viewers while NBC's The Jay Leno Show and Fox4's 9 p.m. local newscast tied for third (126,217 viewers each).

CSI: NY likewise dominated the 18-to-49 Nielsens, but Fox4's news vaulted to second place in this measurement while Leno and Eastwick shared the throwaway bronze.

Earlier Wednesday, The 33's still fledgling 5:30 p.m. newscast has fallen on harder times after some decent early sampling. It drew a sub-puny 13,286 total viewers in its latest outing.

It's a bit better news for The 33's 9 p.m. edition, though. It had a still very smallish 39,858 viewers. But those were 60 Minutes numbers compared to TXA21's ratings-challenged 7 to 9 p.m. local newscast. It had 19,929 viewers in the first hour and 26,572 in the second.

The 33's newscast fared even better with 18-to-49-year-olds and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. In both measurements, The 33 averaged more than the double the audience for TXA21's news.

In Wednesday's four-way local news competitions, CBS11 topped the 10 p.m. field in total viewers, but WFAA8 had a narrow edge among 25-to-54-year-olds. NBC5's Leno-impaired 10 p.m. edition increased its audience in both measurements, but still ran a distant third.

The Peacock again perked up to win at 6 a.m. in total viewers. Fox4 took the 25-to-54 gold, though, notching its first win in that measurement since Thursday, Sept. 17th.

WFAA8, buoyed by a two-pronged 4 p.m. ratings win for The Oprah Winfrey Show, swept the 5 p.m. newscast competitions. Doubters out there take note: Lead-ins still DO matter, even in today's hand-held, laze on the couch, lard-ass universe. When Oprah struggles, WFAA8 usually does, too.

WFAA8 also had a 6 p.m. win in total viewers, with Fox4 topping the 25-to-54 ratings, as it usually does at that hour.
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