NBC’s Thursday Reruns Can’t Outrun ABC, CBS

NBC received an unsettling glimpse of what life would be like without Thursday’s “Must-See TV” lineup, as reruns that night as well as ABC’s and CBS’ solid counter-programming left the top-rated network in third place last week, based on results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

CBS got the holidays off to an early start with animated Christmas specials and improved its ratings: “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” flew to CBS’ highest Monday rating this season, and the network won the 8 p.m. hour Wednesday and Friday thanks to “Charlie Brown,” “Garfield” and “Winnie the Pooh.” “A Thousand Men and a Baby” also continued CBS’ streak of high-rated Sunday movies.

ABC won the week due largely to this season’s highest-rated “Monday Night Football” game (Green Bay vs. Minnesota) and a two-hour special, “Dangerous World: The Kennedy Years,” hosted by Peter Jennings, which generated the network’s biggest Thursday audience since May.

With that special as its lead-in, “20/20” also became the first regularly scheduled program ever to beat NBC’s “ER” (including repeats, as was the case last week). ABC also appeared to benefit from CBS moving “Dellaventura” into “20/20’s” slot in place of “48 Hours,” which had split the news audience.

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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

ABC: 14.27 million

CBS: 13.98

NBC: 12.38

FOX: 10.48

UPN: 4.74

WB: 4.38

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Season to Date

NBC: 15.35 million

CBS: 14.22

ABC: 13.22

FOX: 10.98

UPN: 4.61

WB: 4.35

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. Seinfeld KNBC 1,016,874 2. The X-Files KTTV 911,680 3. 60 Minutes KCBS 806,486 4. “Barbara Walters Special” KABC 741,366 5. Friends KNBC 716,320 6. Home Improvement KABC 691,274 7. 20/20 (Thur.) KABC 671,237 8. Veronica’s Closet KNBC 651,200 Touched by an Angel KCBS 651,200 The Simpsons KTTV 651,200 11. ER KNBC 621,145 King of the Hill KTTV 621,145

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