TV Ratings : ‘Passenger’ Zooms Into the Skies for ABC

The TV movie about Elizabeth Taylor beat the concert by Barbra Streisand in the ratings Sunday night, but they both lost to Wesley Snipes. Figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed that his 1992 action film, “Passenger 57,” was the top-rated program of the night and finished sixth among the week’s 89 prime-time network offerings.

That showing helped boost ABC to a narrow victory over NBC for the week, even though NBC again had the top three shows, all from Thursday: “ER,” “Friends” and “Seinfeld.”

ABC’s telecast of “Passenger 57” was seen in about 15.3 million homes, compared to about 12.8 million for Part 1 of NBC’s “Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story” and about 9.6 million for CBS’ “Barbra: The Concert.”

CBS had better luck on Saturday, where the season finale of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”--in which the characters played by Jane Seymour and Joe Lando were married--won its time period and placed 19th overall.

NBC’s decision to move the Daytime Emmy Awards from midweek to Friday night took a major toll. Ratings for the two-hour telecast were down nearly 28% from a year ago, when ABC aired it on a Wednesday. It was beaten in the first hour by the season finale of the popular “The X-Files” on Fox.

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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. ER KNBC 25.1 2. “The Langoliers” Part 2 KABC 24.2 3. Friends KNBC 20.9 4. Seinfeld KNBC 19.4 5. The Simpsons KTTV 18.7 6. NYPD Blue KABC 16.7 7. The X-Files KTTV 16.2 8. Frasier KNBC 16.0 - Home Improvement (9:30 p.m.) KABC 16.0 10. Married ... With Children KTTV 15.9

Weekly Averages ABC: 11.9 NBC: 11.8 CBS: 9.7 FOX: 7.1 UPN: 3.1 WB: 1.9

Season to Date ABC: 11.9 NBC: 11.8 CBS: 9.7 FOX: 7.5 UPN: 4.0 WB: 1.9 Source: A. C. Nielsen Ratings