TV Ratings : Football Propels CBS to Victory

Post-game coverage of the Redskins-Lions football championship Sunday ran into prime time in most of the country, giving a big boost to CBS’ already strong lineup and helping to propel the network to an easy victory in the week’s prime-time ratings. According to figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co., CBS averaged a 14.2 rating last week, compared to 12.9 for NBC, 12.7 for ABC and 8.4 for Fox (each point represents 921,000 households). But there also was bad news for CBS. The premiere of the reality series “Street Stories” ran third in its time period Thursday and placed 50th among the week’s 92 prime-time series. And CBS’ “Hearts Are Wild” did even worse on Friday, attracting 15% of the available audience and ranking 74th overall. The full list of ratings is on F11.

* In a rare outing in prime time, the NBC daytime serial “Days of Our Lives” didn’t burn up the ratings last Friday, finishing third in the time period and ranking 64th for the week. Still, it drew viewers in nearly 9.7 million homes, compared to the 4.9 million that typically tune in on weekdays. NBC fared better with the program that followed, the Soap Opera Digest Awards. The two-hour broadcast ranked No. 33 and was seen in about 12.8 million homes.

Show Points Share 1. “60 Minutes” (CBS) 26.0 39 2. “NFC Championship” (CBS) 25.1 41 3. “Roseanne” (ABC) 22.4 33 4. “Murder, She Wrote” (CBS) 20.1 29 5. “Murphy Brown” (CBS) 19.6 29 * “Days of Our Lives” (NBC) 10.5 18