Premieres Help ABC Capture Top Spot

In the final warm-up before the start of the 1990-91 TV season, ABC forged ahead of NBC last week to capture its first victory since last April, A.C. Nielsen ratings data showed Tuesday. The season premiere of ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos” on Sunday ranked as the second most-watched show of the week and its spinoff, “America’s Funniest People,” tied for fifth. ABC also got a boost from the debut of its drama series “Gabriel’s Fire,” which finished 13th. Among other premieres last week, NBC’s “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” was 17th, CBS’ “Lenny” was 24th, CBS’ “Uncle Buck” tied for 35th, NBC’s “Law and Order” was 41st, CBS’ “Family Man” was 43rd, CBS’ “E.A.R.T.H. Force” was 44th and Fox’s “Babes” tied for 49th. The full list of ratings is on page 12.

* The Emmy Awards registered their lowest rating ever Sunday night in their fourth year on Fox. After two years of growth, the Emmy audience plunged about 28% from last year--to 7.6 million homes, representing only 14% of those watching TV at the time. The previous low was recorded in 1987, the first year that the Emmys were on Fox, when about 7.8 million homes tuned in. The last time the Emmys were on one of the three major networks--NBC in 1986--about 20.2 million homes watched. TV RATINGS

Show Points Share 1.”60 Minutes”(CBS) 18.4 34 2.”America’s Funniest Home Videos”(ABC) 18.2 30 3.”Monday Night Football”(ABC) 18.0 32 4.”Cheers”(NBC) 16.7 28 5.”Murder, She Wrote”(CBS) 16.4 26 5.”America’s Funniest People”(ABC) 16.4 26 * 42nd Annual Emmy Awards (Fox) 8.2 14