TV RATINGS

There was good news and bad news for CBS News when the weekly ratings arrived Tuesday. The good word was that the two-hour CBS News special, “The Soviet Union--Seven Days in May,” placed 24th with a respectable 12.7 rating and 23% share of the audience. Not so good was that the “CBS Evening News” finished behind NBC and ABC for the fifth consecutive week--even with Dan Rather back in the big chair. (One rating point equals 874,000 households with television, while the share is a percentage of the audience tuned in during a particular time period.) The A.C. Nielsen Co. said the top 10 shows were “The Cosby Show,” “Family Ties,” “Cheers,” “Growing Pains,” “Moonlighting,” “Who’s the Boss?” “The Ladies” (movie), “Lady From Yesterday” (movie), “Golden Girls” and “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.” There were 65 shows on the chart, and the last five places went to “The Wizard,” “Sidekicks,” “Our World,” “Dads” and “Gung Ho.” The full Nielsen list appears on Page 14.