CBS DRAWS ‘BLOOD,’ BUT NBC STAYS NO. 1

CBS won another miniseries showdown Sunday night, but NBC captured the weekly ratings anyway, the A. C. Nielsen Co. reported Tuesday.

Just as CBS’ “Sins” beat NBC’s “Peter the Great” in head-to-head competition earlier this month, so did its “Blood & Orchids” top ABC’s “Crossings” in their battle Sunday.

The first installment of “Blood & Orchids” drew a 22.9 rating to rank eighth among the 68 prime-time shows broadcast on the three networks last week, while the “Crossings” debut was 26th with a 17.5 rating. (Each rating point equals 859,000 homes.)

NBC ran third Sunday night with its three-hour movie “The Fifth Missile,” garnering a 14.7 rating to finish 46th. But the network still finished first for the week to maintain its lead over CBS in the seasonal race. NBC had a 17.5 average, compared to 17.1 for CBS and 15.4 for ABC.

“CBS beat us by 11 ratings points on Sunday night and we still won the week, which shows just how strong our regular schedule is,” said Gerald Jaffe, NBC vice president for research projects.

“Blood & Orchids” was a repeat ratings winner Monday night, while part two of “Crossings” fell to third against NBC’s telecast of the musical film “Annie.”

MORE RATINGS: In the ratings battle between the network newscasts, meanwhile, NBC scored its closest finish to CBS in four years, coming within a 10th of a point of disrupting what is now a string of victories by the “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather” that stretches for 199 weeks.

Rather’s show remained tops for the week with a 13.3 rating while “NBC News With Tom Brokaw” was second with a 13.2 rating. ABC’s “World News Tonight With Peter Jennings” was third with a 12.7 rating.

BEAT THE TOM-TOM: KABC-TV Channel 7, citing growing ratings, has extended the “Tom Snyder” show through April. It initially had been slotted for four weeks only on a trial basis.

The station said the audience for Snyder’s series has increased since its debut Feb. 3, and while the ratings remain relatively low, they’re still bigger than what the station was getting in the 3-4 p.m. time slot a year ago.

NEW SERIES: “All Is Forgiven,” a comedy series that NBC ordered about a year ago, finally will make it to the air March 20. It stars Bess Armstrong and is from the production team that makes “Cheers” for NBC.

Armstrong plays a woman confronted by changes in both her personal and professional lives: She’s a new wife and a new stepmother (of a teen-age daughter) and also has just become producer of a TV soap opera. Also featured in the show are Terrence Knox, Carol Kane and Shawnee Smith.

“All Is Forgiven” will first be seen March 20 and 27 at 9:30 p.m., behind “Cheers,” then will shift to Saturdays at 9:30 p.m., starting March 29. “227,” which normally airs in the Saturday slot, will return to the schedule in May, NBC said.

BROTHERLY LOVE: In what may be an unprecedented demonstration of cooperation between broadcasters, a commercial TV station in Schenectady, N.Y., this week threw out its entire program schedule--including commercials--to carry the lineup of a public TV station.

The non-commercial station, WMHT, had been knocked off the air last week by a fire that ruined its transmitter. WUSV-TV, a 15-month-old station, stepped forward to offer its air time. Reruns of “Get Smart” were replaced by “The Nightly Business Report,” “Hawaii Five-O” gave way to “Wonderworks” and “The Honeymooners” was replaced by “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.”

“We feel that we can be doing more of a community service by providing the PBS programming to this market,” said Steven Tacco, president of WUSV. WMHT will pay WUSV’s expenses for the service, which will continue until the non-commercial station installs a new transmitter, probably on Thursday.