CBS’ ‘48 Hours’ Is a Top 10 Surprise

With reruns dominating the network schedules last week, there were also reruns on the Nielsen winners’ list that came out Tuesday. “Roseanne,” the top-rated show of the past season, was the most-watched show of the week, and NBC captured the network sweepstakes, as it did during the regular season. Both drew smaller ratings than usual, however. The big surprise in the Top 10 was the CBS news program “48 Hours,” which finished 10th among the week’s 85 prime-time programs. This was for a special Wednesday-night broadcast that aired opposite the Rock Awards on ABC, which ranked 55th. The regular Thursday night telecast of “48 Hours” placed a more normal 58th. The full list of ratings is on Page 10.

* After two weeks on the air and two weeks in the Top 10--thanks in no small part to the lead-in from the ever-popular “Cheers”--”Seinfeld” was picked up Tuesday by NBC for a regular season run. The comedy, starring Jerry Seinfeld, finished third in its first week and No. 8 last week (down about 1.8 million homes from the previous week). NBC, which had delayed putting the current batch of episodes on until after the season was over, ordered 13 episodes of the comedy for scheduling next year.

TV RATINGS

Show Points Share 1. “Roseanne” (ABC) 16.8 29 2. “Cheers” (NBC) 15.4 27 3. “The Cosby Show” (NBC) 14.7 29 4. “Designing Women” (CBS) 14.7 24 5. “Unsolved Mysteries” (NBC) 14.6 29 * “Seinfeld” (NBC) 14.2 24