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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed., Oct. 17) -- rain-delayed baseball rubs X Factor wrong way

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom
Fox's daytime NLCS game between the Cardinals and Giants was supposed to be over and out of the way by the time The X Factor kicked in at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

But a three-and-half-hour rain delay pushed baseball into prime-time hours and made a mess of Simon Cowell's big-ticket talent competition. So much so that he tweeted, "It was a total f-up. Have no idea what is happening to the schedule tonight."

The Cards and Giants resumed play at approximately 8:40 p.m. after portions of X Factor had aired. This knocked X Factor off the air in the midst of judge Demi Lovato's detailing of who she'd be sending to live auditions next week. Fox now plans to air the two-hour installment in its entirety on Tuesday of next week.

X Factor had a peak audience of 247,831 D-FW viewers between 8 and 8:15 p.m. But when baseball resumed, those numbers dropped to 89,495 viewers between 8:45 and 9 p.m.

CBS happily romped to a prime-time sweep in total viewers, with Survivor: Philippines, Criminal Minds and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation all winning their time slots. The second episode of ABC's much-acclaimed Nashville took the silver at 9 p.m., trailing CSI by a score of 282,252 viewers to 185,873.

The CW's second episode of Arrow had 130,800 viewers -- an unusually high number for that network -- from 7 to 8 p.m.

Survivor also won the 7 p.m. hour with advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds, but Arrow ranked a close second.

ABC's Modern Family had the most 18-to-49-year-olds from 8 to 8:30 p.m. before the second half of Criminal Minds prevailed from 8:30 to 9 p.m.

FX then scored big with its 9 p.m. premiere of American Horror Story: Asylum, which beat all of the Big Four broadcast attractions in the key 18-to-49 demographic. AHS ran third at that hour in total viewers, behind CSI and Nashville.

In Wednesday's local news derby results, CBS11 took first place in total viewers at 10 p.m. while Fox4 won among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

WFAA8 swept the 6 a.m. Nielsens, with paper-thin wins over Fox4 in total viewers and NBC5 in the 25-to-54 age group.

WFAA8 ran the table by comfier margins at 6 p.m.; NBC5 scored twin wins at 5 p.m.
unclebarky@verizon.net