Newsmagazines Take Advantage of Rerun Doldrums

With the networks awash in reruns, most viewers turned elsewhere for their prime-time television last week. Ratings released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research showed that ABC, CBS and NBC combined to attract only 44% of the audience, with Fox garnering a mere 9%.

The one form of programming that seems to benefit in the summer is newsmagazines. There were four in the Top 10 nationally, and six in the Southland--led, in both cases, by ABC’s “PrimeTime Live” last Wednesday. The series, hosted by Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer, featured a report on a death row inmate.

ABC’s “20/20” tied with “PrimeTime Live” in household ratings at No. 4 nationally but trailed in the local numbers. “Dateline NBC” had three editions in the local Top 10.

Not that viewers were crying out for original programming. The return of “Muppets Tonight” to the ABC lineup on Sunday night ranked 80th among the week’s 106 prime-time network programs, attracting only 9% of the available audience.

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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 Station Rating 1. PrimeTime Live KABC 14.3 2. Seinfeld KNBC 13.5 3. Friends KNBC 13.0 4. “A Search for Justice” KNBC 12.7 5. 20/20 KABC 12.3 6. 60 Minutes KCBS 12.2 7. Dateline NBC (Wed.) KNBC 11.7 8. Dateline NBC (Tue.) KNBC 11.2 Caroline in the City KNBC 11.2 10. Wings KNBC 11.0 Dateline NBC (Fri.) KNBC 11.0

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Weekly Averages

NBC: 8.0

ABC: 7.4

CBS: 7.3

FOX: 4.6

UPN: 2.2

WB: 2.1

Season to Date

NBC: 11.4

ABC: 10.2

CBS: 9.4

FOX: 7.0

UPN: 3.0

WB: 2.4

Source: A.C. Nielsen