TV Ratings : CBS Skates to Another Olympics Win

CBS continued to dominate the prime-time ratings with its Winter Olympics coverage last week, but not to the extent that it did during the first week of the games. Whereas all seven nights of Olympics programming finished in the Top 10 the first week, only three of them did in the second week. Figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed that the most-watched program of the week was the Olympics coverage on Friday, which included the women’s figure skating finals. The closing ceremonies on Sunday, by contrast, only ranked 26th among the week’s 69 prime-time programs. Still, CBS had plenty of reason to be pleased: It averaged an 18.9 rating for the week--compared to 12.9 for NBC, 12.3 for ABC and 8 for Fox--and boosted its lead in the race for the season championship.

* There was a bit of good news for NBC amid the Olympics onslaught. “I Witness Video,” a special from its news division that is being considered as a possible series, won its time period at 8 p.m. Sunday and finished at No. 16 overall. The network said that that constituted the second-best showing it’s had in that time period this season, trailing only “Kindergarten Cop.”

Points Share 1. “Winter Olympics” (Friday) (CBS) 25.0 40 2. “60 Minutes” (CBS) 23.1 38 3. “Winter Olympics” (Wednesday) (CBS) 22.8 35 4. “Winter Olympics” (Monday) (CBS) 21.7 32 5. “Roseanne” (ABC) 20.6 29 * “I Witness Video” (NBC) 15.2 23

Complete list, F13

(Each rating point represents 921,000 homes. Share is the percentage of viewing audience.)