TV Ratings : World Series Helps CBS Win Week

CBS’ World Series ratings were the third lowest for the baseball championships (see story, F1), but the games still beat nearly everything else that was on last week--and CBS was an easy winner in the network competition. Figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed CBS with an average prime-time rating last week of 17.1, compared to 11.3 each for ABC and NBC, and 7.7 for Fox. Perhaps to counter the news of its poor World Series numbers, CBS noted Tuesday that, five weeks into the fall season, it is the only one of the four networks whose lineup of “regular programs”--meaning series and movie slots--is performing better than it did at the same time a year ago.

* Without “The Cosby Show” as its lead-in, NBC’s “A Different World” is struggling this season. It barely finished third in its time period last Thursday and so far this season is drawing only about two-thirds the audience it averaged last season. NBC will be showing back-to-back episodes from 8 to 9 p.m. this week, and thereafter will be moving it from an 8 p.m. start to its former slot of 8:30 p.m.

TV Ratings

Points Share 1. “60 Minutes” (CBS) 24.7 39 2. World Series Game 6 (CBS) 22.7 41 3. World Series Game 5 (CBS) 21.6 36 4. World Series Game 3 (CBS) 20.8 33 5. “Roseanne” (ABC) 20.2 29 * “A Different World” (NBC) 9.5 16

Complete list, F14 (Each rating point represents 931,000 homes.

Share is the percentage of viewing audience.)