TV Ratings : ‘Monday Night Football’ Gives ABC Win Over NBC

The week before Christmas found ABC’s “Monday Night Football” at the top of the TV ratings, ahead of reruns of “ER,” “Seinfeld” and “Caroline in the City” and a new episode of “Frasier,” according to figures released Wednesday by the Nielsen Research Center.

The 49ers, led by quarterback Steve Young, beat the Vikings in a high-scoring contest, and ABC wound up edging NBC to win the week.

CBS, meanwhile, got a present from the Wednesday special “Kathie Lee: Home for Christmas,” the highest-rated holiday show at No. 24, and a miss from a repeat of “Christmas on Division Street” (No. 83), which was broadcast on Sunday.

In fact, many of the prime-time shows that aired Sunday did poorly, most likely because it was Christmas Eve, including “60 Minutes” (No. 62); NBC’s movie “Necessary Roughness” (67) and “Mad About You” (78); and ABC’s movie “Columbo: Butterfly in Shades of Gray” (65) and “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” (76).

But NBC’s presentation on Friday night of the 1965 Oscar-winning film “The Sound of Music,” starring Julie Andrews, finished at a respectable No. 38.

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.

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Program Station Rating 1. ER KNBC 20.3 2. Monday Night Football KABC 19.4 3. Frasier KNBC 18.9 4. Seinfeld KNBC 16.7 5. Wings KNBC 15.9 6. NYPD Blue KABC 15.8 7. The John Larroquette Show KNBC 15.3 8. NewsRadio KNBC 14.7 9. Home Improvement KABC 14.4 10. Caroline in the City KNBC 14.0

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Weekly Averages

ABC: 9.7

NBC: 9.6

CBS: 8.0

FOX: 6.8

UPN: 2.4

WB: 2.2

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Season to Date

NBC: 11.8

ABC 11.4

CBS 9.5

FOX 7.5

UPN 3.2

WB: 2.3