Prime-Time TV Rankings

The networks continue to strike out ratings-wise this summer, with baseball’s All-Star Game earning its lowest score since moving to prime time 30 years ago, according to results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Even so, as a sign to how low the networks have sunk, that ratings performance ranked behind only “Seinfeld” last week while pushing Fox within a hair of tying struggling ABC’s weeklong average.

News programs continue to provide rare bright spots for the networks as an alternative to reruns, with ABC’s “20/20” attracting more viewers than “ER.” “PrimeTime Live” and two editions of “Dateline NBC” also cracked the Top 10.

CBS’ telecast of “The Godfather, Part III,” divided into two parts, emerged as the week’s top-rated movie despite only modest ratings, as just over 10 million people tuned in.

In another good news-bad news scenario, the ABC late-night series “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher” delivered a record-low rating for its time slot but was seen by 5.5 million people, considerably more than the program averages following “Nightline.” ABC is giving the show a four-week prime-time run specifically to let viewers sample the series who might not see it otherwise.

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: 9.60 million

CBS: 9.33

ABC: 8.15

FOX: 8.14

UPN: 3.63

WB: 3.29

Season to Date

NBC: 14.56 million

CBS: 13.09

ABC: 12.61

FOX: 10.80

UPN: 4.30

WB: 3.54

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.ER KNBC 737,481 2.Seinfeld KNBC 726,539 3.60 Minutes KCBS 682,057 4.Touched by an Angel KCBS 642,517 5.20/20 KABC 637,575 6.Friends KNBC 588,150 7.Suddenly Susan KNBC 573,323 8.The X-Files KTTV 518,956 9.NYPD Blue KABC 504,129 10.PrimeTime Live KABC 474,474 Clueless KABC 474,474

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