ABC Torches Its Competition

ABC’s telecasts of the relighting of the Statue of Liberty, a Fourth of July fireworks spectacular and a closing Liberty Weekend extravaganza combined last week to put both ABC and its week-night newscasts in a happy, if unaccustomed position--No. 1 in prime-time ratings.

The network, third in prime-time ratings for two successive seasons, won the week’s ratings race, and so did its “World News Tonight” newscasts, according to A.C. Nielsen audience estimates made public Tuesday.

Overall, ABC last week averaged a 13.9 rating, compared to 11.9 for NBC. The resurgent Peacock network nonetheless had 11 programs--including the hit “The Bill Cosby Show”--among the week’s 20 highest-rated programs. CBS was third with a 9.3 rating.

Each ratings point represents 859,000 homes with television sets.

The week’s highest-rated program was ABC’s Thursday night mix of Liberty Weekend entertainment and news coverage of ceremonies that included President Reagan’s relighting of the Statue of Liberty torch. It had a rating of 19.9.

The second highest-rated show was ABC’s July 4 Liberty Weekend telecast, which included the spectacular half-hour fireworks show in New York Harbor. It got an 18.4 rating. The network’s Liberty Weekend grand finale, a star-studded Sunday night special, wound up in 10th place with a 15.2 rating.

The network’s two-hour Liberty Weekend preview on Wednesday night didn’t fare as well, though, emerging 34th, with an even larger audience drop for ABC’s Saturday night classical music concert from New York’s Central Park. That program was rated 48th out of 56 shows aired in prime time by the three networks last week.

Still, ABC’s “World News Tonight” obviously got a ratings boost on Thursday and Friday nights from the network’s Liberty Weekend broadcasts. It wound up first in ratings for the five-night period ending July 4.

It was seen in an average of 8.5 million homes, compared to just over 8 million for the “CBS Evening News” anchored by Dan Rather and 7.9 million homes tuned in for the third-place “NBC Nightly News” anchored by Tom Brokaw.

No national prime-time ratings were available for the first two days of the competing Olympic-style Goodwill Games broadcast aired from Moscow on Saturday and Sunday by Ted Turner’s Turner Broadcasting System.

The games, ending on July 20, are being carried by a network of 65 stations, including KTLA in Los Angeles, a Turner spokeswoman said.

While doubtless pleasing to ABC and David Wolper, who produced the network’s Liberty Weekend specials, the ratings for ABC’s Liberty Weekend telecasts still were well below those for the network’s prime-time broadcasts of the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in August, 1984.

The Olympics telecasts were seen in an average of 21 million homes during the 16 nights they were aired. In contrast, ABC’s prime-time Liberty Weekend telecasts and preview program had an average audience of just over 14.1 million homes during a five-night period.

And while last Thursday’s lavish, Wolper-produced opening ceremonies were the week’s top-rated show and was seen in more than 17 million homes, it was easily topped by another Wolper-created extravaganza--the Closing Ceremony of the Summer Olympics on ABC.

That spectacle had a national audience of nearly 23.5 million homes.

ABC paid $10 million for exclusive rights to its Liberty Weekend telecasts from New York, and spent another $4 million to produce it. It apparently turned a profit.

ABC officials said that the network sold out its inventory of commercial time for the telecasts, which totaled $30 million. They said that a 30-second commercial in prime time cost advertisers $165,000, with $30,000 the price for a daytime commercial of equal length on a Liberty Weekend broadcast.