TV RATINGS : NBC Ably Defends Its Ratings Title

Defending champion NBC, powered by No. 1 “Cheers,” a special one-hour episode of “The Cosby Show” and a strong performance by the Sunday film “Three Men and a Baby,” jumped out to a quick and sizable lead in the November ratings sweeps last week, the A.C. Nielsen research firm reported Tuesday. But underdog CBS continued to show surprising tenacity by finishing second, thanks to “60 Minutes,” the growing clout of “Murphy Brown” and “Designing Women,” and the revived strength of “Murder, She Wrote”--all of which finished in the Top 10. For the week, NBC had a 13.5 rating, CBS a 12.6 and ABC an 11.9. (Each rating point represents 931,000 households.) The full list of ratings is on Page F10.

* CBS’ “Dallas” still radiated life signs as it returned for its 13th season, winning its Friday time period with a premiere that featured daytime soap opera star Susan Lucci. But the venerable series showed signs of age as it could finish no better than 41st among 91 programs for the week, and was challenged strongly in its time slot by ABC’s “20/20” (46th).

Show Points Share 1. “Cheers” (NBC) 22.4 35 2. “60 Minutes” (CBS) 21.4 34 3. “The Cosby Show” (NBC) 20.2 31 4. “Three Men and a Baby” 19.9 31 (NBC) 5. “Roseanne” (ABC) 19.1 29 * “Dallas” (CBS) 12.2 23