powered by FreeFind

Apple iTunes

Archives

Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs.-Sun., Sept. 12-15) -- Cowboys, Country Music and a Dem debate

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Noon starts in early season games generally deflate the ratings for Dallas Cowboys games.

Sunday’s Game 2 nooner on Fox against the Washington Redskins reinforced that norm. The Cowboys’ 31-21 road win, which ended at 2:56 p.m., averaged 1,152,805 D-FW viewers and 440,803 within the advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-old age range.

Last year’s second regular season game, a 20-13 win over the New York Giants on NBC’s prime-time Sunday Night Football stage, pulled in 1,428,693 total viewers and 599,155 in the 18-to-49 realm. The 2017 Game 2, in which the Cowboys were pasted in Denver 42-17 on a Fox mid-afternoon game, also did better than Cowboys-Redskins with 1,316,060 total viewers and 525,964 in the 18-to-49 demographic. That one was delayed one hour by lightning.

Fox’s Cowboys-Redskins followup act, the Los Angeles Rams vs. the New Orleans Saints, averaged 674,813 total viewers, outdrawing NBC’s Sunday night encounter between the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles (442,846 viewers).

Over on PBS, the first chapter of Ken Burns’ 8-part Country Music film drew 77,322 total viewers, with 27,173 in the 18-to-49 motherlode. In both measurements, the audience increased throughout the 7 to 9 p.m. running time. These are very solid numbers locally for KERA13.

Let’s rewind to Thursday night, where ABC’s nearly three-hour, 10-way Democratic presidential candidate debate easily won among the Big Four broadcast networks with an average of 260,084 total viewers and 72,461 in the 18-to-49 age range. That was good enough to outdraw the NFL Network’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Carolina Panthers game in total viewers. But football had the edge among 18-to-49ers.

Friday’s prime-time schedule again was pockmarked with repeats while Saturday offered a lackluster schedule of college football matchups. So let’s not dwell on those.

Here are the Thursday and Friday local news derby results.

Thursday -- WFAA8 swept the 10 p.m. competitions in both total viewers and with 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 had twin wins at 6 a.m. and also won at 5 p.m. with 25-to-54-year-olds. WFAA8 had the most total viewers at 5 p.m.

At 6 p.m., Fox4’s 6 p.m. newscast was rubbed out by an oddly scheduled Fox network baseball pre-game show. In the three-way competition, NBC5 and WFAA8 shared the lead in total viewers while the Peacock was alone on top with 25-to-54-year-olds.

Friday -- WFAA8 ran first in total viewers at 10 p.m. while Fox4 won among 25-to-54-year-olds.

Fox4 again led the 6 a.m. competitions and also won among 25-to-54-year-olds at 5 and 6 p.m. The total viewer golds went to NBC5 at 5 p.m. and WFAA8 at 6 p.m.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net