Not an Award-Winning Showing for the Tonys

Broadway bombed Sunday night. The 50th annual Tony Awards, saluting the best of New York theater, attracted only 11% of the available television viewers and ranked 55th among the week’s prime-time network programs, Nielsen Media Research reported Tuesday.

CBS’ coverage of the Tonys didn’t do well last year, either, but these household ratings were 15% lower, with an average audience of about 8.8 million viewers. ABC, by contrast, averaged 13.4 million last week with its “American Film Institute Salute to Clint Eastwood.”

Topping the Sunday night Tony competition was a repeat of a 1993 TV movie, “The Only Way Out,” with John Ritter. ABC’s broadcast finished third for the week with about 17.8 million viewers, trailing only reruns of “Home Improvement” and “Coach.”

With the top three programs, ABC scored a narrow victory for the week over NBC in households, although NBC was first among the advertiser-preferred 18- to 49-year-old crowd.

“ABC World News Tonight” was No. 1 among the network evening newscasts for the 195th time in the last 196 weeks.

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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. Home Improvement KABC 17.8 2. 60 Minutes KCBS 16.6 3. Coach KABC 14.5 4. “Shattered Mind” KNBC 14.3 -- PrimeTime Live KABC 14.3 6. 20/20 KABC 14.1 7. Before They Were Stars KABC 12.2 -- “AFI Salute to Clint Eastwood” KABC 12.2 9. Roseanne KABC 12.0 10. NYPD Blue KABC 11.9

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Weekly Averages

ABC: 9.0

NBC: 8.6

CBS: 7.7

FOX: 5.0

UPN: 2.7

WB: 2.4

Season to Date

NBC: 11.5

ABC: 10.4

CBS: 9.5

FOX: 7.2

UPN: 3.1

WB: 2.4

Source: A. C. Nielsen