powered by FreeFind

Apple iTunes

Archives

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Mon., Aug. 30-Sept. 2) -- Dome, Breaking Bad, college football, Rangers set pace

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
CBS’ Under the Dome got out from under a Time Warner Cable blackout for the first time in four weeks Monday night. And the D-FW ratings were sunnier.

Monday’s Labor Day episode, airing just a few hours after the blackout officially ended, drew 282,252 viewers to easily rank as the the holiday’s top attraction. It was Dome’s biggest showing since July 8th, when it had 309,789 viewers. On the last Monday night affected by the blackout, Aug. 26th, Dome pulled in 227,179 viewers. Roughly 400,000 Time Warner subscribers were affected in the D-FW viewing area.

The Texas Rangers’ Labor Day afternoon loss at Oakland, which dropped them into a first-place tie with the A’s, was the second most-watched TV attraction with an average of 178, 989 viewers on Fox Sports Southwest.

AMC’s new episode of Breaking Bad stayed strong Sunday with 192,758 viewers. An eye-popping 130,765 of them were advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds. In comparison, CBS’ 60 Minutes led the night with more total viewers (234,063). But just 15,947 were in the 18-49 motherlode. The Rangers-Twins game on FSS had 178,989 viewers and 47,841 in the 18-to-49 demographic.

ABC’s two-hour Muscular Dystrophy Association fundraiser, which ran from 8 to 10 p.m. Sunday, averaged just 34,421 total viewers.

Saturday’s big dog, ESPN’s TCU-LSU game from Jerry’s Palace, averaged 282,252 viewers. FSS’s Rangers-Twins game and ABC’s Clemson-Georgia matchup, tied for second opposite TCU-LSU with an average of 158,337 viewers each.

Let’s go to Friday, where the Rangers-Twins on TXA21 won a matchup against ESPN’s competing SMU-Texas Tech game. The Rangers averaged 213,410 viewers, their highest total over these four days, while SMU-Texas Tech drew 151,452 viewers.

Here are Friday’s local news derby numbers, with Labor Day “thrown out” after the four major combatants all took holiday designations throughout the day save for CBS11 at 10 p.m.

WFAA8 had Friday’s best overall showing, running first at both 6 and 10 p.m. in total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Fox4 again swept the 6 a.m. competitions. At 5 p.m., NBC5 won in total viewers and tied WFAA8 for the top spot in the 25-to-54 demographic.

LOCAL TV NEWS NOTE

WFAA8 president and general manager Mike Devlin will become chairman of the national ABC affiliates board after incumbent Dave Boylan of Miami’s WPLG-TV resigns as that station’s general manager on Sept. 20th.

Devlin has been at WFAA8 since March 2005. He assumed his current position as both president and general manager of the station in October 2007.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net