Everybody’s Looking for Laughs

With the country at war, a lot of Americans went searching for comedy on TV last week. They found it: Ratings released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed that 12 of the 16 most-watched programs were comedies, starting with NBC’s “Cheers” and including “Roseanne,” “Murphy Brown,” “Family Matters,” “Golden Girls,” “A Different World” and “Empty Nest.” It was the 12th time in the 21-week-old prime-time season that “Cheers” finished first. Among the networks, however, it was ABC that placed No. 1 for the week, averaging a 12.8 rating, compared to 12.7 for NBC and 12.2 for CBS. (Each rating point represents 931,000 households.) The full list of ratings is on F8.

TV RATINGS

Show Points Share 1. “Cheers” (NBC) 21.5 33 2. “60 Minutes” (CBS) 21.1 35 3. “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (ABC) 19.2 29 4. “America’s Funniest People” (ABC) 18.8 28 “Roseanne” (ABC) 18.8 29 * “Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter” (CBS) 16.4 25

* Lucy continues to pack in TV audiences. Despite some negative reviews and criticism from their daughter, Lucie Arnaz, the dramatic biography of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz drew strong ratings on CBS Sunday night. It was seen in about 15.3 million households and ranked 17th on the list of 94 prime-time programs that were broadcast on the four networks last week. Among the Sunday night competition, ABC’s telecast of “Big” was No. 28 and NBC’s TV movie “The Chase” tied for No. 29.