TV Ratings : ABC Wins First Two Weeks of the Season

NBC had the two highest-rated rookie programs last week, but ABC had the most to crow about when the weekly prime-time figures from the A.C. Nielsen Co. came out Tuesday: For the first time since 1978, it has won the first two weeks of the season.

Three-time defending champion CBS, meanwhile, is running third--the only one of the four networks to have registered a decline in audience.

ABC had the top-rated show of the week in “Home Improvement” and placed three others in the Top 10: “Grace Under Fire,” “Roseanne” and “Monday Night Football” (Denver Broncos at Buffalo Bills). Its new sitcom “Me and the Boys” tied for 14th among the week’s 95 prime-time network programs.

NBC, whose ratings are up 13% so far this season, had three new series in the Top 20: the medical drama “ER” with Anthony Edwards at No. 6, “Madman of the People” at No. 10 and “Friends” at No. 19.

Newcomers near the bottom of the chart included ABC’s “McKenna,” “On Our Own,” “Blue Skies” (in its regular time slot) and “My So-Called Life”; NBC’s “Something Wilder” and Fox’s “New York Undercover,” “Fortune Hunter,” “M.A.N.T.I.S.” and “Party of Five.”

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. Roseanne KABC 21.8 2. Home Improvement KABC 21.8 3. Seinfeld KNBC 20.6 4. Grace Under Fire KABC 20.2 5. Ellen KABC 19.7 6. ER KNBC 18.9 7. The Simpsons KTTV 17.6 8. 60 Minutes KCBS 17.3 9. Beverly Hills, 90210 KTTV 16.8 10. “A Friend to Die For” KNBC 16

Weekly Averages ABC: 12.2

NBC: 12.0

CBS: 11.7

FOX: 7.4

Season to Date

ABC: 12.4

NBC: 12.2

CBS: 11.7

FOX: 7.4