TV Ratings : ABC Gets Ready for the ‘Real’ Season With a Win

In the last tuneup before the fall TV season officially began, ABC won the ratings race last week and topped the charts with new episodes of “Home Improvement” and “Roseanne.” Figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed that they were followed by a newcomer, NBC’s “Frasier,” a spinoff from “Cheers” starring Kelsey Grammer.

Other new shows that did well last week were ABC’s “Thea” and “Moon Over Miami” and NBC’s “seaQuest DSV,” whose audience was down 22% from its first week but still managed to outdraw the 45th annual night-time Emmy Awards telecast on ABC.

The Emmys, in fact, suffered its worst showing ever on one of the three major networks. After six years of low ratings on Fox, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences had moved the awards show back to ABC this year. But the broadcast Sunday drew only a 13.8 rating, down from the 13.9 it registered last year and lower than the 16.4 scored by the Daytime Emmys last May.

NBC fared much better with the Miss America Pageant on Saturday. It was seen in about 16.6 million homes, compared to 13 million for the Emmys.

Southland Ratings Here are A. C. Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. Each rating point equals 50,064 households.

Sta- Rat- Program tion ing 1. Home Improvement KABC 23.1 2. Seinfeld KNBC 20.7 3. Roseanne KABC 20.5 4. Frasier KNBC 20.0 5. The Simpsons KTTV 19.7 6. Coach KABC 19.4 7. Home Improvement (8 p.m.) KABC 18.9 8. “Emmy Awards” KABC 18.2 9. 60 Minutes KCBS 17.2 10. Sinbad Show FOX1 3.8

Weekly Averages

ABC: 12.2 NBC: 11.3 CBS: 10.4 FOX: 7.1