TV Ratings : CBS Carves Up the Competition

CBS shot back to the top of the prime-time ratings last week as “60 Minutes” and “Murder, She Wrote” attracted their second largest audiences of the season. Figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed CBS averaging a 13 rating for the week, with ABC at 11.7, NBC at 10.7 and Fox at 7.

CBS, which continues to lead in the season-to-date standings, won the Thanksgiving night battle as “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” attracted 24% of the available audience. But its effort to capitalize on Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie, “Dracula,” by rerunning a 1974 TV movie version of Bram Stoker’s famous story, starring Jack Palance, fell flat, attracting only 12% of the available viewers.

ABC had six of the Top 10 programs and won the competition among TV movies Sunday night with “A Mother’s Right: The Elizabeth Morgan Story.” ABC says it is the only one of the four networks to have registered overall audience growth this season.

NBC’s brightest spot was Monday, where “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and “Blossom” teamed up to win the 8-9 p.m. slot, and the conclusion of “Deadly Matrimony” did likewise from 9 to 11.

Fox’s “Cops” won its time slot Saturday, and “Beverly Hills, 90210” ran a strong second in its Wednesday period, but the network’s special starring the rock group U2 was the lowest-rated prime-time program of the week, attracting only 5% of the available viewers Sunday night.

* “Coach” scored a touchdown in its first outing in its Wednesday time slot. The comedy ranked No. 7 for the week and delivered what ABC described as the “best ratings performance by a regularly scheduled (ABC) program in the time period” since September, 1987. It drew nearly twice the audience as its next closest competitor, an episode of NBC’s “Seinfeld.” The big test now is whether “Coach’s” replacement on Tuesday, “The Jackie Thomas Show,” can do as well in holding the “Roseanne” crowd.

TV Ratings

Points Share 1. “60 Minutes” (CBS) 24.6 39 2. “Roseanne” (ABC) 20.7 31 3. “Deadly Matrimony (Part 2)” (NBC) 18.9 29 4. “Murder, She Wrote” (CBS) 18.8 28 5. “Home Improvement” (ABC) 18.6 29 * “Coach” (ABC) 17.7 28

Complete list, F8 (Each rating point represents 931,000 homes. Share is the percentage of viewing audience.)