ABC’s Double Victory Sprinkled With Sugar
The Sugar Bowl proved sweet for ABC, as college football’s national-championship game helped provide the network rare Thursday night and weekly ratings victories, according to figures issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.
Network viewing was still low due to a glut of pre-New Year’s repeats, but the week’s latter half improved thanks to the influence of the pro football playoffs and mid-season scheduling moves. NFL games spilled over into prime time Sunday and drew plenty of men to the TV set Saturday afternoon that Fox lured back that evening, with “America’s Most Wanted” and “Cops” booking their highest ratings since March.
In the first wave of scheduling changes, “JAG,” a drama about Navy lawyers starring David James Elliott, landed on CBS’ Friday beachhead and captured more viewers than all but one airing of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” the show it replaced. That performance and a best-ever Friday rating for the news program “Dateline NBC” combined to drop Fox’s “Millennium” to its lowest rating yet for a new episode.
ABC also shuffled its Sunday lineup, with mixed results. Moving “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” to 7 p.m. sapped the Man of Steel’s strength to record-low levels, but the network gained some viewers by moving “America’s Funniest Home Videos” to 8 o’clock.
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Network Averages
Here is the number of viewers that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.
ABC: 15.29 million
NBC: 14.14 million
CBS: 13.61 million
FOX: 10.27 million
UPN: 3.67 million
WB: 2.97 million
Season to Date
NBC: 15.30 million
CBS: 13.95 million
ABC: 14.04 million
FOX: 11.56 million
UPN: 4.50 million
WB: 3.67 million
Southland Viewing
Here are Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. The rankings are based on the number of households watching.
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Program Station Households 1. Seinfeld KNBC 19.2 2. ER KNBC 17.3 3. 60 Minutes KCBS 15.7 4. Suddenly Susan KNBC 14.5 5. The Simpsons KTTV 13.5 6. Caroline in the City KNBC 13.1 7. “Breaking Through” KABC 12.8 -- 20/20 KABC 12.8 -- Touched by an Angel KCBS 12.8 10. Friends KNBC 11.9
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Source: A. C. Nielsen
