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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Mon., Oct. 18) -- Rangers double audience for Dancing with the Stars

By ED BARK
Two big-timers were left flat-footed by the Rangers Monday -- Dancing with the Stars and the Yankees.

Texas' 8-0 prime-time win at New York in Game 3 of the ALCS averaged 865,713 D-FW viewers, leaving the night's usual runaway top draw with athlete's foot. ABC's two-hour Dancing performance edition had a comparatively paltry 415,542 viewers, less than half the crowd for the Rangers and Yanks on cable's TBS.

The game also had a healthy share of advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, with 417,906 viewers in this age range. The ALCS is by no means over, but the drool is starting to form at Fox4, which will have the World Series after being stuck with the NLCS as an appetizer. A first-time Rangers appearance in the WS would be a mega-ratings bonanza for Fox4, which also has the Super Bowl in Jerry's Palace this February.

All four major local TV news providers had sports anchors in NYC Monday. But their 10 p.m. live reports from outside Yankee Stadium were largely blotted out by the game itself, which ran until 10:27 p.m. From 10 to 10:30 p.m., the combined newscasts on Fox4, NBC5, WFAA8 and CBS11 had 588,635 viewers. In that same half hour, Rangers-Yankees drew 1,115,038 viewers. In other words, a blowout.

Over on ESPN, the Monday Night Football game between Jacksonville and Tennessee punted with just 145,440 viewers.

NBC's latest episode of Chase, filmed entirely in North Texas, also had a tough go in D-FW Monday night. It drew 173,143 total viewers to finish third at 9 p.m. in the broadcast universe behind CBS' Hawaii Five-0 (290,879 viewers) and ABC's Castle (270,102 viewers). It was the same order of finish with 18-to-49-year-olds.

In local news derby results, WFAA8 edged CBS11 at 10 p.m. in total viewers and won by a comfier margin over NBC5 among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming on most stations.

Fox4 again swept the 6 a.m. proceedings while WFAA8 did likewise at 6 p.m. The 5 p.m. golds were split between WFAA8 in total viewers and Fox4 with 25-to-54-year-olds.