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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Final Nov. sweeps results)

By ED BARK
Belo8 can toast itself; NBC5 can drown its sorrows.

CBS11 can point to significant signs of progress; Fox4 can still crow about the early mornings.

The final November sweeps newscast ratings are in, and Belo8 is a Colossus in the marquee 10 p.m. race.

Juiced by a big Tuesday night lead-in from ABC's Dancing with the Stars finale, Belo8 closed with a flourish to average a double-digit Nielsen rating (10.2) in routing No. 2 CBS11. A year ago, Belo8 finished a close second to NBC5 with an 8.5 rating.

Now the Peacock is de-feathered while Belo8 has accomplished something that wasn't thought possible anymore. Hitting for a double-figure average at 10 p.m. is a major achievement in these fragmented times. And we didn't even have any bonafide "arctic blasts" to boost those numbers.

CBS11 knocked previously dominant NBC5 into a distant third place in the 10 p.m. total homes race. It also came within a hair of taking second place among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming.

In year-to-year performance, the Peacock also fell from first to third at 6 a.m.

Fox4, the early morning runnerup a year ago, reclaimed both top spots while Belo8 climbed from third to second. NBC5's major audience losses helped to put CBS11 within shouting distance of third place in the early mornings.

Belo8 had comfortable twin wins at 5 and 6 p.m., replicating its performance from a year ago. It was the only station to increase its audience year-to-year in all four newscast battle zones. NBC5, in contrast, took frightening plunges at 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Or as the station's newscasts say almost every night: "Very scary."

Here are the November sweeps results in the four major local newscast time slots, with year-to-year plusses or minuses in parentheses. (Note: there's been some ratings inflation since November, 2006. Each rating point now is worth 24,356 total homes, compared to 23,800 last year. And in the key 25-to-54 demo, a rating point now equals 29,445 viewers, up from 28,700.)

10 P.M.

TOTAL HOMES
Belo8 -- 248,431 (+41,371)
CBS11 -- 177,799 (+27,859)
NBC5 -- 138,829 (-68,231)
Fox4 -- 97,424 (-156)

25-to-54-YEAR-OLDS
Belo8 -- 173,726 (+40,857)
NBC5 -- 103,058 (-63,735)
CBS11 -- 100,113 (+18,130)
Fox4 -- 61,835 (-3,186)

6 A.M.

TOTAL HOMES
Fox4 -- 107,166 (+4,826)
Belo8 -- 97,424 (+14,124)
NBC5 -- 68,197 (-46,043)
CBS11 -- 41,405 (-1,435)

25-to-54-YEAR-OLDS
Fox4 -- 73,613 (+11,419)
Belo8 -- 58,890 (+8,004)
NBC5 -- 38,279 (-29,569)
CBS11 -- 23,556 (-1,887)

6 P.M.

TOTAL HOMES
Belo8 -- 172,928 (+25,368)
CBS11 -- 107,166 (-30,874)
NBC5 -- 99,860 (-14,380)
Fox4 -- 90,117 (-16,983)

25-to-54-YEAR-OLDS
Belo8 -- 85,391 (+20,370)
NBC5 -- 58,890 (-477)
Fox4 -- 53,001 (-26,155)
CBS11 -- 35,334 (-15,552)

5 P.M.

TOTAL HOMES
Belo8 -- 155,878 (+8,318)
Fox4 -- 99,860 (+4,660)
NBC5 -- 87,682 (-24,178)
CBS11 -- 73,068 (-3,092)

25-to-54-YEAR-OLDS
Belo8 -- 76,557 (+8,709)
NBC5 -- 50,057 (-6,483)
Fox4 -- 44,168 (-3,891)
CBS11 -- 29,445 (+3,265)