TV Ratings : NFC Championship Kicks CBS to Top

With a boost from the NFC Championship game on Sunday, which ran over into prime time on the East Coast and Midwest, CBS handily captured the network ratings crown for last week. Figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed that CBS broadcast six of the 11 highest-rated programs during the week--all from its Sunday and Monday lineups--and also got another winning performance on Saturday from “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.” Overall, CBS averaged a 13.7 rating in prime time, compared to 12.7 for ABC, 10.8 for NBC and 7.6 for Fox. ABC, meanwhile, had a dilemma: whether to be happy that “The Jackie Thomas Show” finished No. 12 among the week’s 99 prime-time programs, or sad that it failed to hold 30% of the audience from the show that preceded it, “Roseanne.”

* CBS, No. 1 in the season-to-date ratings, is not without problems: Its science-fiction series “Space Rangers” is flying in the wrong direction. In its second outing last Wednesday, it lost about 10% of its audience from the previous week and finished fourth in the time slot.

TV Ratings

Points Share 1. “NFC Championship (Post Game)” (CBS) 27.4 44 2. “60 Minutes” (CBS) 26.5 40 3. “Roseanne” (ABC) 24.1 35 4. “Home Improvement” (ABC) 21.0 30 5. “Murphy Brown” (CBS) 19.9 29 * “Space Rangers” (CBS) 9.6 14

Complete list, F17 (Each rating point represents 931,000 homes.

Share is the percentage of viewing audience.)