TV Ratings : CBS Draws First in Sweeps Shootout

CBS won the first Sunday night shootout of the February ratings sweeps, with its frontier movie “Skylark” drawing a slightly larger audience than NBC’s “Laugh-In” reunion in the 9-11 p.m. period. Ratings released Tuesday by the A. C. Nielsen Co. showed that “Skylark,” a sequel to 1991’s high-rated “Sarah, Plain and Tall,” ranked No. 4 for the week with about 18.5 million homes tuned in. With its newsmagazine “60 Minutes” topping the list, CBS won the weekly network sweepstakes, averaging a 14 rating compared to ABC’s 12.6, NBC’s 11.6 and Fox’s 8.3.

* The debut of “Almost Home” Saturday night did not provide NBC with cause for cheering: It ranked No. 79 overall, attracting only 13% of the available audience and finishing fourth in the time period. Nor did NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Streets” make much of a dent: Despite a strong sampling when it premiered following the Super Bowl, the police drama fell to No. 60 when it moved to its regular slot last Wednesday, placing third in the time period. But NBC’s “Seinfeld” got its best ratings ever in its initial outing on Thursday behind “Cheers,” finishing at No. 10.

TV Ratings

Points Share 1. “60 Minutes” (CBS) 23.2 37 2. “Home Improvement” (ABC) 21.4 32 3. “20/20” (ABC) 20.0 35 4. “Skylark” (CBS) 19.9 29 5. “Murphy Brown” (CBS) 19.8 30 * “Almost Home” (NBC) 7.9 13

Complete list, F9 (Each rating point represents 931,000 homes. Share is the percentage of viewing audience.)