TV Ratings : CBS Claims No. 1 Spot for Season

CBS celebrated Tuesday: For the first time since 1985, it finished the so-called official prime-time season in first place, after six years in third. Indeed, the phrase “mired in third place” had become so endemic to descriptions of the network that at a news conference in New York Tuesday, CBS Broadcast Group President Howard Stringer presented CBS Inc. chief Laurence Tisch with a T-shirt that read, “Mired in first place”--with all the letters run together. Figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed that CBS won the network competition last week, with 22 victories in the 30 weeks that constitute the official season. CBS averaged a 13.8 rating for the season, up 12% over last year, while NBC posted a 12.3 and ABC a 12.2, both down slightly from a year ago. Fox averaged an 8 rating, up 25% from last season.

TV Ratings

Points Share 1. “NCAA Basketball Championship” (CBS) 22.7 35 2. “60 Minutes” (CBS) 19.1 33 3. “Roseanne” (ABC) 18.2 28 4. “Home Improvement” (ABC) 18.1 29 5. “I Witness Video” (NBC) 16.9 27 * “The Simpsons” (FOX) 11.4 20

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

* “The Simpsons” didn’t have one of its best showings last week, but it nevertheless wound up as the Fox network’s highest-rated show of the season, at No. 33. The top-rated shows for the season were, in order, “60 Minutes,” “Roseanne,” “Murphy Brown,” “Cheers,” “Home Improvement,” “Designing Women,” “Coach,” “Full House,” “Unsolved Mysteries” and “Murder, She Wrote.”