TV Ratings : NBA Finals Give NBC a Boost

For the second week in a row, NBC won the weekly ratings competition with the help of the National Basketball Assn. championship series. Figures released Tuesday by the A. C. Nielsen Co. showed that the final three games of the Chicago-Portland series all finished among the week’s Top 10, with Game 6--in which Chicago clinched its second consecutive title--attracting viewers in about 13.5 million homes. Overall, NBC said that the six games averaged a 14.2 rating, down 10% from last season. For the week, NBC averaged a 10.8 rating in prime time, compared to 9.6 for CBS, 8.8 for ABC and 5.9 for Fox. NBC’s highest-rated non-basketball show was a “Cheers” rerun at No. 10.

* CBS gave its daytime soap “The Guiding Light” a prime-time outing Friday in celebration of its 40th anniversary, but the ratings were nothing to cheer about. The show ran fourth in its 9 p.m. time slot and finished 69th among the week’s 87 prime-time programs, attracting viewers in about 5.3 million homes.

Points Share 1. “Roseanne” (ABC) 17.2 30 2. “NBA Post-Game Show” (Sun.) (NBC) 16.6 28 3. “NBA Finals” (Wed.) (NBC) 16.0 29 4. “Shattered Dreams” (CBS) 15.2 27 5. “Coach” (ABC) 15.1 26 * “The Guiding Light” (CBS) 5.8 12

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

Complete list, F9