‘Roseanne’ Noses Out 3rd Game of Series

Ratings for NBC’s coverage of the World Series continued to build with the dramatic third game in Oakland, but the premiere of ABC’s comedy “Roseanne” outscored the Dodgers and the A’s in its time period, the A.C. Nielsen Co. reported Wednesday.

The Tuesday-night baseball game, which Oakland won 2-1 on a ninth-inning home run, averaged an audience of more than 22.3 million households--40% of the homes that were watching TV that night.

The first game of the series had attracted viewers in about 18.5 million homes; the second drew 20.7 million homes.

“Roseanne,” a family comedy starring Roseanne Barr, won the time period between 8:30 and 9 Tuesday night. The ABC series was seen in about 21.4 million homes versus 17.5 million for NBC’s World Series coverage--which in much of the country was just getting under way at that point.

Not surprisingly, the national figures were not mirrored in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area. The game was nearing its climax as “Roseanne” came on on the West Coast, and it had the attention of the about 66% of the viewers in Los Angeles and 58% in San Francisco.

About 25% of the audience in each of those markets checked out “Roseanne,” reducing CBS’ “High Risk” to single-digit ratings. The two-week-old magazine was seen by only 2% of the L.A. audience and 6% of the San Francisco viewers.