‘PETER’ NOT AS GREAT AS ‘SINS’ IN FINAL NIELSENS

Although the first night of NBC’s “Peter the Great” bested Joan Collins’ “Sins” in preliminary 12-city ratings, national audience estimates released Tuesday showed that the Sunday debut of the Collins miniseries on CBS defeated NBC’s historical entry by a 601,300-home margin.

The preliminary overnight ratings from the big cities (reported Tuesday in Calendar) usually portend the outcome of the national returns, but not in this case. The final A.C. Nielsen Co. tally showed that the opening of “Sins” ranked 16th in viewer popularity last week, with “Peter the Great” coming in 20th.

The first chapter of CBS’ three-part saga about a rags-to-riches publishing heiress averaged a 19.7 rating, while NBC’s two-hour premiere of the four-part, $26-million “Peter the Great” averaged a 19 rating, according to national estimates. ABC’s main competition against the two shows, the James Bond movie “Octopussy,” was third with a 17.4 rating. Each rating point represents 859,000 homes.

In an attempt to blunt the three-hour premiere of “Sins,” NBC had broadcast a special half-hour Sunday episode of its hit “The Cosby Show,” followed by “Amazing Stories,” before the premiere of “Peter.” But only the Cosby comedy show won its time period. It proved the nation’s third most-watched program last week, getting a 27.6 rating.

Before Sunday night, CBS and NBC each had heavily publicized and advertised their miniseries, with NBC even running “Peter the Great” commercials on CBS-owned KNX Radio in Los Angeles.

However, despite the opening-night triumph of “Sins” in the national Nielsens, NBC, seeking its first season as No. 1 since 1954, won last week’s prime-time ratings race.

Aided by the Thursday night ratings performance of its Bill Cosby and “Family Ties” sitcoms (they were first and second in the week’s rankings, respectively), NBC last week averaged an 18.2 rating for its prime-time programs, or more than 15.6 million homes.

CBS, second in ratings for the season to date, followed with an average 16.4 rating while ABC was third with a 15.8.

An ABC special, “Life’s Most Embarrassing Moments,” proved the most embarrassing to the network. It was the week’s least-watched program, getting only a 6.9 rating. And the premiere of ABC’s new series “The Disney Sunday Movie” ranked 41st among the week’s 68 programs.