TV Ratings : ABC Wins Sunday Movie Bout With Theatrical ‘Siege’

Theatrical movies don’t tend to have much ratings punch by the time they get to network television these days, but Steven Seagal’s “Under Siege” managed to come out on top for ABC Sunday night.

The 1992 action flick attracted about 19.2 million viewers, according to prime-time network ratings released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research. That was only enough to place 19th in the rankings for last week, but it still beat Part 1 of CBS’ “Gone in the Night” (with 17 million viewers) and Part 1 of NBC’s “Seduced by Madness: The Diane Borchardt Story” (with 15.5 million viewers).

The highest-rated movie of the week was NBC’s Monday night offering, “A Secret Between Friends,” starring Lynda Carter and Katie Wright, which ranked ninth and had an audience of about 20.6 million. That helped NBC win the week as its five Thursday night programs again took Nielsen’s top five spots.

After two weeks of finishing third, ABC moved back into second with two Top 10 finishers: “Home Improvement” and “20/20.” Fox’s top performer was “The X-Files,” which tied for 38th nationally and 10th locally.

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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.

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Program Network Rating 1. ER KNBC 28.2 2. Friends KNBC 25.2 3. Seinfeld KNBC 24.6 4. The Single Guy KNBC 21.3 5. Caroline in the City KNBC 19.7 6. 60 Minutes KCBS 18.4 7. NYPD Blue KABC 17.8 8. Frasier KNBC 17.2 9. Home Improvement KABC 16.1 10. The X-Files KTTV 16.0

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Weekly Averages

NBC: 12.0

ABC: 10.8

CBS: 9.9

FOX: 7.5

UPN: 4.0

WB: 2.8

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Season to Date

NBC: 12.0

ABC: 11.0

CBS: 9.6

FOX: 7.5

UPN: 3.2

WB: 2.4

Source: A. C. Nielsen