‘Cosby’ Back in Familiar 1st Place

“The Cosby Show” recovered from its Thanksgiving ratings blues and took over first place on the Nielsen charts last week, relegating ABC’s “Roseanne” to fourth place, it was reported today. It was the highest-rated “Cosby” of the season, which was important to NBC because the network was using “Cosby” as a lead-in to launch its new “Ann Jillian” show.

“Cosby” has been the No. 1 show for four of the last five weeks. The exception was last week, when Thanksgiving cut down the “Cosby” numbers.

“Ann Jillian” in its regular Sunday night time slot did not fare as well, coming in 52nd.

Meanwhile, CBS announced today that Angela Lansbury, star of the highly rated series “Murder, She Wrote,” will return for a seventh season as Jessica Fletcher.

Howard Springer, president of the CBS Broadcast Group, said that in addition, Lansbury’s production company, Corymore Productions Inc., will develop another series for CBS for the 1990-91 season.

TOP 10 SHOWSProgram (Network): Rating

1. The Cosby Show (NBC): 27.1

2. Cheers (NBC): 25.4

3. Ann Jillian (Thurs.) (NBC): 25.0

4. Roseanne (ABC): 24.5

5. Dear John (NBC): 21.4

6. The Golden Girls (NBC): 20.1

7. Murder, She Wrote (CBS): 19.8

8. L.A. Law (NBC): 19.6

9. 60 Minutes (CBS): 19.5

10. The Wonder Years (ABC): 19.5