Mix of Movies, Magic Makes NBC Holiday Winner

Magic and angels took center stage in prime time last week, but NBC still marched into first place behind a parade of holiday weekend movies, according to results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

“Touched by an Angel’s” Roma Downey flew a successful double mission Sunday, as her CBS series landed in third place while the movie “Borrowed Hearts,” starring Downey and Hector Elizondo, emerged as the week’s top-rated program--in part because most of NBC’s Thursday night stalwarts took Thanksgiving off. NBC opted to fight the holiday blahs with movies Thursday through Sunday, including “Jurassic Park” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

As for magic, Fox worked some as the November sweeps closed with “Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed,” the highest-rated special in the network’s history. A magic special also lifted NBC to its biggest Wednesday rating this season except for playoff baseball.

ABC had to settle for fourth place, taking a beating Sunday with the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie “Street Fighter.” The network’s return of “Grace Under Fire” didn’t set the ratings ablaze either, finishing far behind NBC’s “Mad About You” in its Tuesday slot.

National Nielsen Viewership

Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (Nov. 24-30) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Nielsen estimates that there are 254 million potential U.S. viewers age 2 and older. Viewership is listed here in millions.

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Network Averages

Here is the number of viewers that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

Last Week

NBC: 15.34 million

CBS: 14.93

FOX: 12.03

ABC: 11.84

WB: 4.26

UPN: 3.76

Season to Date

NBC: 15.65 million

CBS: 14.25

ABC: 13.11

FOX: 11.03

UPN: 4.59

WB: 4.34

Southland Viewing

Here are Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. The rankings are based on the number of households watching.

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Program Station Households 1. “Magic Secrets Revealed” KTTV 826,523 2. The X-Files KTTV 766,412 3. Frasier KNBC 761,403 4. “Borrowed Hearts” KCBS 751,385 5. 60 Minutes KCBS 736,357 6. “Christmas Vacation” KNBC 696,283 7. King of the Hill KTTV 666,228 8. “Home Alone 2” KTTV 641,181 9. Law & Order KNBC 636,172 10. NYPD Blue KABC 616,135

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