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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Sun., Oct. 7-9) -- hangin' with the Rangers through two hours worth of rain delays

By ED BARK
D-FW viewers showed admirable resilience Saturday night, keeping the ratings amazingly high through a rain-drenched nearly five-hour game that ended at 12:04 a.m. Sunday on Fox.

The Rangers' Game 1 ALCS home win over Detroit averaged 704,506 viewers despite two rain delays totaling two hours (8:42 to 9:23 p.m. and 9:26 to 10:45 p.m.). A peak audience of 873,859 watched between 8:30 and 8:45 p.m., according to the 15-minute increments measured by Nielsen. A great majority of those viewers -- 724,829 -- returned for the post-midnight final pitch.

Overall ratings obviously were hurt by the interruptions, particularly during the second one. The smallest audience for the entire night came between 10:30 and 10:45 p.m., when 501,283 viewers were on hand. And Game 1 against the Tigers fell well short of last fall's ALCS opener against the New York Yankees, which averaged 928,044 viewers on TBS despite the Rangers blowing a 5-1 eighth inning lead. That game had a peak audience of 1,115,038, marking the first time a Rangers game had ever surpassed the one million mark.

Ran or no rain, Saturday night's Dallas Stars-Chicago Blackhawks regular season faceoff on TXA21 drew just 20,322 viewers opposite Rangers-Tigers. Yow, even CW33's 9 p.m. local newscast beat it -- with 27,096 viewers. Friday's Stars season opener, also against the Blackhawks, had 33,871 viewers on Fox Sports Southwest.

NBC's Sunday Night Football game between the Packers and the Falcons got a free pass after the Yankees and Tigers were rained out. It was the second most-watched pro pigskin game of the day with 467,413 viewers. CBS' late afternoon attraction, the Patriots against the Jets, topped it with an average of 508,058 viewers.

Friday's prime-time ratings were paced by CBS, which ran the table in total viewers with A Gifted Man, CSI:NY and Blue Bloods, the night's high scorer with 298,060 viewers. But BB again had hardly any advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-old viewers, falling to fourth place at 9 p.m. with just 19,219.

In Friday's local news derby results, CBS11 won at 10 p.m. in total viewers while NBC5 was tops with 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

Otherwise it was all Fox4, with the station sweeping the 6 a.m. and 5 and 6 p.m. competitions.