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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Tues., Nov. 6)

By ED BARK
It could be, it might be, it's -- not quite -- a rare double grand slam for Belo8 in D-FW's four major local news wars.

The ABC station is broadly grinning anyway. Its usual strong performance at 10 p.m. was coupled with a second straight weekday atop the 6 a.m. ratings in both total homes and with 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. Belo8's Daybreak again prevailed over Fox4's Good Day, which seemed invulnerable going into the November "sweeps."

Now it could be a race in the early mornings, with Belo8 taking advantage of both big numbers at 10 p.m. and late night's only first-run network attraction in ABC's Nightline. Those can be strong promotional platforms for an early morning show, and Belo8 is playing right along during this suddenly strike-torn season.

NBC5, benefiting from its network's only dependably strong lead-in (Law & Order: SVU), ran second at 10 p.m. in both ratings measurements to gain a bit of ground on CBS11 in the battle for November's runnerup spot. But the latter station has hammers on Wednesday and Thursday nights with 9 p.m. CBS hits CSI: NY and Without A Trace. Belo8 also will luxuriate on Wednesday with ABC's three-hour CMA Awards, always a big draw in these parts.

The 5 p.m. news competition also went to Belo8, as did the 6 p.m. in total homes. But the station stumbled in the latter hour with 25-to-54-year-olds, finishing third behind twin frontrunners Fox4 and NBC5.

In other ratings hot spots, Good Day recovered from 7 to 9 a.m., where it again outdrew the three competing morning shows in both ratings measurements. Fox4's 9 p.m. local news also ran well among both 25-to-54-year-olds and 18-to-49-year-olds, the key advertiser target audience for entertainment programming. It beat SVU in both of those audience demos to place second behind ABC's still very formidable Boston Legal.

Prime-time's biggest draw, ABC's Dancing with the Stars results show, amassed 326,370 homes. That's a quantum leap from the network's preceding and sputtering Carpoolers, which had only 107,166 total homes to run fourth from 7:30 to 8 p.m.

Fox's House remains a strong draw from 8 to 9 p.m., but still ran a distant second behind Dancing in total homes, etc. By the way, Jane Seymour got the boot.