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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs.-Sun., Dec. 4-7) -- Cowboys pummel Peter Pan but rout of Bears otherwise ranks in lower rung

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
No amount of fairy dust could give NBC’s Peter Pan Live a lift opposite the Dallas Cowboys’ 41-28 win over the Bears Thursday night.

Still, the game came up well short of the 1.5 million viewers mark with a dual presentation on CBS11 and cable’s NFL Network.

Cowboys-Bears had 1,046,100 D-FW viewers on CBS11 and tacked on another 202,246 for the NFL Net’s presentation. The grand total of 1,248,346 puts the game 8th among this season’s 13 regular season matchups. The biggest draw -- 1,604,020 -- was for Fox’s telecast of the Cowboys’ upset win at Seattle. Just one game, Dallas’ comeback road win versus the St. Louis Rams, has lured fewer than one million viewers locally (943,135 on Fox).

Among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds, Cowboys-Bears had 432,071 viewers on CBS11 and 91,602 on NFL Net for a total of 523,673.

Over on NBC, the three-hour Peter Pan Live ran a distant second in prime-time with 104,610 total viewers and 44,153 in the 18-to-49 motherlode.

Sunday’s NFL ratings were paced by Fox’s Seahawks-Eagles game, which drew 767,140 total viewers. NBC’s Sunday Night Football attraction, the Patriots versus the Chargers, came in second with 495,154 viewers. In the early afternoon games, Fox’s Colts-Browns beat CBS’ Steelers-Bengals by a score of 369,622 to 258,038.

CBS’ colorized I Love Lucy Christmas special, shown from 7 to 8 p.m. Sunday., had a nice-sized 223,168 viewers.

Saturday’s college football parade was paced by Baylor’s prime-time win over Kansas State. It drew 244,090 viewers on ESPN while TCU’s early bird crunching of Iowa State had 209,220 viewers for the ABC telecast.

ABC’s prime-time game, Florida State versus Georgia Tech, drew 174,350 viewers to easily beat Fox’s competing Ohio State-Wisconsin matchup (62,766 viewers). My humiliated alma mater Badgers, on the receiving end of a 59-0 wipeout, will now play in the Dayton Dainty Doily Bowl against Southwestern Bell State, which is a two-touchdown favorite. (OK, they’re actually playing Auburn in the Outback Bowl. That likely won’t be pretty either.)

Also on Saturday, NBC’s annual prime-time showing of It’s a Wonderful Life showed signs of petering out. It drew 76,714 total viewers with a scant 12,615 in the 18-to-49 demographic.

Here are the Thursday and Friday local news derby results.

Thursday -- Opposite the closing stages of the Cowboys game, NBC5 won a downsized three-way race in total viewers while Gannett8 ran first with 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 had twin wins at 6 a.m. and Gannett8 swept the 6 p.m. competitions. NBC5 had the most total viewers at 5 p.m. but was nipped by Gannett8 among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Friday -- Gannett8 ran the table at 10 p.m. in another three-way competition while Fox was occupied with the Oregon-Arizona college football game.

NBC5 swept the 6 a.m. races and CBS11 had the most total viewers at both 5 and 6 p.m. Fox4 ran first at 5 and 6 p.m. with 25-to-54-year-olds.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net