TV Ratings : Olympics Pushes CBS to Highest-Rated Week in History

There was the Winter Olympics, and then there was everything else. That’s how last week’s prime-time TV ratings broke down in the figures released Wednesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. “60 Minutes” tied for seventh place with Day 3 of CBS’ snow-and-ice games, but ABC’s “Home Improvement,” which followed at No. 9, was three points behind--meaning it reached 2.8 million fewer homes than the lowest-rated Olympics broadcast.

CBS said it was the network’s highest-rated week in history, and the largest audiences ever for Olympics programming--summer or winter. On average, the network’s prime-time schedule attracted 40% of the available audience last week--a whopping 24.4 million homes, compared to9.8 million for ABC, 8.5 million for NBC and 6.9 million for Fox.

ABC had been making a run at CBS in recent weeks, but CBS is now assured of winning the prime-time season for the third year in a row.

National A.C. Nielsen Ratings

Here are the ratings for national prime-time television last week (Feb. 14-22) as compiled by the A. C. Nielsen Co. Each rating point is said by Nielsen to represent 942,000 homes, or 1% of the 94.2 million U.S. households that have TV.

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 28.8 2. Winter Olympics (Fri.) KCBS 28.6 3. Winter Olympics (Sat.) KCBS 24.5 Winter Olympics (Thurs.) KCBS 24.5 5. Winter Olympics (Tues.) KCBS 23.0 6. 60 Minutes KCBS 21.5 7. Winter Olympics (Wed.) KCBS 20.2 8. Winter Olympics (Mon.) KCBS 19.3 9. Home Improvement KABC 19.0 10. Roseanne KABC 18.7

Weekly Averages

CBS 25.9

ABC 10.4

NBC 9.0

FOX 7.3

Season to Date

CBS 13.8

ABC 12.5

NBC 11.4

FOX 7.2