TV Ratings : Dallas-S.F. Matchup a Boon for Fox

The money Fox lost in its expensive acquisition of professional football rights this season was partially offset with big ratings for its telecast of the National Football Conference championship game on Sunday. The matchup between San Francisco and Dallas ran 39 minutes into prime time in most of the country, making it the top-rated program of the week and giving Fox its best ratings ever.

The game, in which Steve Young led the 49ers to victory and a trip to the Super Bowl against the San Diego Chargers, helped boost the audience for Fox’s entertainment programs that night.

At 8 p.m., “The Simpsons” drew the largest ratings in that time period for Fox since September, 1992, while at 9 p.m., ratings for “Married . . . With Children” were 16% higher than usual.

At the other end of the spectrum, the new WB Network attracted only 3% of the national audience with its first night of programming last Wednesday. No one expected it to be competitive with the other four broadcast networks out of the gate, but even WB executives acknowledged that the showing was well below what they had guaranteed advertisers.

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 Network Rating 1. Seinfeld KNBC 24.4 2. ER KNBC 23.3 3. Home Improvement KABC 20.7 4. Roseanne KABC 18.1 5. Friends KNBC 17.9 6. Grace Under Fire KABC 17.6 7. 60 Minutes KCBS 17.5 8. Frasier KNBC 17.1 9. “Presumed Innocent” KCBS 16.7 10. America’s Funniest Home Videos KABC 16.5

Weekly Averages

ABC: 11.8

NBC: 11.7

CBS: 11.3

FOX: 9.1

WB : 1.9

Season to Date

ABC: 12.1

CBS: 11.6

NBC: 11.4

FOX: 7.7

WB : 1.9

Source: A.C. Nielsen