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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Wed.-Thurs., July 30-31) -- The Quest's a bust while Fox4's 9 p.m. news keeps flexing

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
ABC’s The Quest, a medieval fanboy/girl version of Survivor, suffered the slings and arrows of crummy ratings with Thursday’s debut.

It drew 71,013 D-FW viewers in the 7 p.m. hour, trailing CBS’ competing repeat comedy combo of The Big Bang Theory (220,140 viewers) and The Miller (134,928).

Still, ABC might have been buoyed a bit by an overall distant second place finish in the 7 p.m. hour were it not for The Quest’s dismal showing among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds. It drooped to fourth in this key measurement, trailing the CBS sitcoms, NBC’s Hollywood Game Night and Fox’s Sleepy Hollow rerun. In fact, The Quest’s total haul of 18-to-49-year-olds -- 16,284 -- wasn’t that much better than TXA21’s 7 p.m. rerun of The Wild, Wild West (9,770).

CBS’ Big Brother won at 8 p.m. in both ratings measurements before Fox4’s local newscast swept the 9 p.m. hour and drew more viewers than BB in both ratings measurements.

It continues to be a profitable summer for Fox4’s prime-time newser, which also won its 9 p.m. slot in impressive fashion on Wednesday night. In that case it faced new drama series episodes on ABC, NBC and CBS, including the latter network’s heavily promoted, Halle Berry-starring Extant. Here are the four-way scorecards:

Total Viewers

Fox4’s news -- 184,634
Extant -- 177,533
Motive (ABC) -- 127,823
Taxi Brooklyn (NBC) -- 120,722

18-to-49-Year-Olds

Fox4’s news -- 84,674
Motive -- 35,824
Extant -- 32,567
Taxi Brooklyn -- 49,709

D-FW ratings were not available for SyFy’s Sharknado 2: The Second One, which averaged 3.9 million total viewers nationally Wednesday and 1.6 million in the 18-to-49 demographic. Those are nice numbers for SyFy, but almost assuredly not big enough for the Twitter phenom to beat Fox4’s news locally in either measurement.

Wednesday’s biggest prime-time draw, NBC’s 8 p.m. hour of America’s Got Talent, had close to three times as many total viewers nationally as Sharknado 2 did while also outdrawing it by a comfortable margin among 18-to-49-year-olds. But Fox4’s 9 p.m. news still had more 18-to-49-year-olds in D-FW than AGT.

Also of note: CBS11’s syndicated Wheel of Fortune, which airs at 6:30 p.m. before prime-time kicks in, led all D-FW programming in total viewers on both Wednesday and Thursday. And even though its ratings droop considerably among 18-to-49-year-olds, it also handily beat the three competing rag mags -- ET, Extra, Access Hollywood -- in that key measurement.

WFAA8 willingly coughed up Wheel in fall 2005, citing its older audience demographics as the primary reason for inserting Entertainment Tonight in the 6:30 p.m. slot. Nine years later, Wheel may well be the primary reason why CBS11’s 6 p.m. newscasts continue to be competitive in the total viewers measurement. “Lead-outs” sometimes can be as important as “lead-ins.” And while waiting for Wheel to air, a sizable number of D-FW viewers likely are still “warming up” their sets by watching CBS11 news. They may be mostly older, but they’re still warm bodies. And nine years after moving from WFAA8 to CBS11, Wheel shows absolutely no signs of rolling over and playing dead.

OK, here are the four-way local news derby results:

Wednesday -- CBS11 had the most total viewers at 10 p.m. while NBC5 led among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 again swept the 6 a.m. competitions. At 6 p.m., CBS11 won in total viewers but was edged among 25-to-54-year-olds by Fox4 and NBC5 (which tied for the top spot).

The 5 p.m. golds went to NBC5 in total viewers and WFAA8 in the 25-to-54 demographic.

Thursday -- Fox4 ran the table at both 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. while CBS11 notched twins at 6 p.m. The 5 p.m. firsts went to NBC5 in total viewers and Fox4 among 25-to-54-year-olds.

LOCAL TV NOTE: The departing flights continue at KTXD-TV (Ch. 47). As previously reported, the station’s flagship locally produced program, The Broadcast, is losing firecracker Suzie Humphreys, who signed off on the Friday, Aug. 1st edition. Another charter member of The Broadcast’s initial quartet of women, Courtney Kerr, will be leaving sometime in August, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Robert Philpot.

The Broadcast also will be cut in half to its original one-hour length to make room for new syndicated programming coming this fall. Whether anyone will notice is debatable. Currently airing from 9 to 11 a.m. weekdays and repeated from 4 to 6 p.m., The Broadcast almost always registers “hashmarks” (no measurable audience) in the daily Nielsen ratings reports.

KTXD, which abruptly laid off at least 10 off-camera staffers last month, also will be losing vice president and general manager Brian Joyce in August. He’ll join his old London Broadcasting boss, Phil Hurley, at Gannett Company, Inc., which earlier this year bought six London stations in smaller markets throughout Texas. London continues to own KTXD, but for how long is an open question.

Late last year, Gannett also took control of Dallas-based WFAA8. Hurley, who’s now a senior vice president with Gannett, is managing the six Texas stations purchased from London. Hurley said he’s still headquartered in the old downtown “Belo Tower,” but soon will relocate to WFAA8 offices after remodeling is finished. Belo had owned WFAA8 for virtually the station’s entire existence, but unloaded all of its TV properties to Gannett in a surprise deal last year.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net