TV Ratings : Olympic Games Help CBS Take the Gold

With record ratings for the first weekend of its Winter Olympics coverage, CBS soared to a gold medal in the prime-time ratings last week. Figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed CBS winning by its largest margin of the season, 3.8 points ahead of runner-up ABC.

CBS’ coverage of the opening ceremonies on Saturday ranked No. 7 among the week’s 85 prime-time network programs, while the first full day of competition on Sunday was No. 1, attracting viewers in nearly 28 million homes.

And there was more Olympics fallout for CBS as “Eye to Eye With Connie Chung” racked up its biggest ratings ever to place 11th with an interview with figure skater Tonya Harding.

ABC, meanwhile, said it got best-ever ratings for “Coach” and “NYPD Blue” last week. But its animated series “The Critic” lost another bunch of viewers in its third outing, attracting only 67% of the audience that had tuned in for the first installment.

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.

Program Station Rating 1. “Winter Olympics” (Sun.) KCBS 24.5 2. 60 Minutes KCBS 23.3 3. Home Improvement KABC 21.6 4. Roseanne KABC 21.5 5. Seinfeld KNBC 21.4 6. “American Music Awards” KABC 20.2 7. Frasier KNBC 19.4 8. Coach KABC 19.1 9. The Simpsons KTTV 18.8 10. Beverly Hills, 90210 KTTV 17.8

Weekly Averages

CBS 16.8

ABC 13.0

NBC 11.8

FOX 8.0

Season to Date

CBS 13.2

ABC 12.6

NBC 11.5

FOX 7.2