NBC’s Thursday Night Juggernaut Rolls On

NBC’s Thursday night shows wound up the 1995-96 TV season right where they’ve been throughout: on top of the weekly ratings from Nielsen Media Research. The list released Tuesday had “ER” at No. 1, with an estimated audience of nearly 34.3 million viewers, followed by “Seinfeld,” “Caroline in the City,” “Friends” and “The Single Guy.”

And NBC’s “Mad About You” tied for sixth with ABC’s “Home Improvement.” It was the best showing for the marital sitcom since moving to Sundays and scored a victory over the final installment of CBS’ “Murder, She Wrote,” which ranked 16th among the week’s 98 prime-time network programs.

ABC’s telecast of the Tom Cruise film “The Firm” won the battle of movies Sunday night, attracting about 18 million viewers, with NBC’s “A Friend’s Betrayal” second in the household ratings and CBS third with Part 1 of “Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy.”

Fox ran fourth in the household tally but reported doing much better in key demographic breakdowns--trailing only NBC, for example, among viewers ages 18 to 34.

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Southland Ratings

Here are A. C. Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. Each rating point equals 50,064 households.

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Program Network Rating 1. Seinfeld KNBC 27.0 2. ER KNBC 26.0 3. Friends KNBC 22.3 4. Caroline in the City KNBC 21.6 5. Mad About You (Sun.) KNBC 21.0 6. Single Guy KNBC 17.6 7. NYPD Blue KABC 17.5 8. Home Improvement KABC 17.0 9. Roseanne KABC 16.4 10. Married ... With Children KTTV 16.0

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Weekly Averages

NBC: 11.4

ABC: 9.7

CBS: 8.8

FOX: 7.3

UPN: 2.7

WB: 2.0

Season to Date

NBC: 11.7

ABC: 10.5

CBS: 9.6

FOX: 7.3

UPN: 3.1

WB: 2.4

Source: A. C. Nielsen