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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs., Dec. 3) -- The Wiz Live! stands up to Thursday Night Football

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Ratings-wise, there were two games in town Thursday night -- NBC’s The Wiz Live! and the CBS/NFL Network presentation of Thursday Night Football.

Follow the yellow brick road, which says that The Wiz stood toe-to-toe with the Green Bay Packers-Detroit Lions matchup while outdrawing the NFL among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds. That hadn’t happened all season when both CBS and NFL Net are combining forces.

The Wiz, which ended at 9:45 p.m. and ushered in an early start for NBC5’s late night newscast, drew 361,202 total D-FW viewers. Packers-Lions, featuring a near-miracle “Hail Mary” win by Green Bay on the last play of the game, averaged 297,461 viewers on CBS and added another 77,906 for the NFL Net simulcast. That’s a slightly higher total of 375,367 viewers.

Among 18-to-49-year-olds, though, The Wiz had 177,839 viewers to best the combined total of 139,731 for CBS and NFL Net. CBS had 111,150 of those viewers.

Let’s also note that The Wiz was an extraordinarily ambitious production that for the most part came off flawlessly. NBC also sold a lot of commercial time, to the point where the breaks at times made it seem that The Wiz was the one interrupting all that paid advertising.

ABC’s 8 to 10 p.m. CMA Country Christmas special came in as Thursday’s No. 3 prime-time draw with 184,142 total viewers and 44,598 in the 18-to-49 age range.

Here are Thursday’s local news derby results.

NBC5’s expanded 10 p.m. newscast ran first in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming). CBS11 got counted out by the Thursday Night Football overrun.

Fox4 cruised to another pair of 6 a.m. wins and NBC5 ran wild at 5 and 6 p.m. with across-the-board first-place finishes.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net