Game 7 Keeps World Series From Dubious Record

Sunday’s exciting World Series finale saved Florida-Cleveland from going down in history as the lowest-rated Fall Classic and lifted NBC to its highest weekly rating since the 1996 Summer Olympics, according to results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

This year’s baseball championship barely edged the earthquake-disrupted 1989 series between Oakland and San Francisco. Sunday’s game proved the difference, out-rating every World Series contest since the last seventh and deciding game in 1991.

Some programs still performed extremely well against baseball, such as CBS’ Sunday movie “Miracle in the Woods” (the season’s top-rated movie thus far), starring Meredith Baxter and Della Reese; “Touched by an Angel”; and “Diagnosis Murder,” which scored its highest rating in more than two years.

Similarly, Fox aired its traditional “The Simpsons” Halloween marathon, with the one original episode scaring up an impressive 19 million viewers. Third-place ABC had the toughest time countering baseball.

In terms of new series, NBC has cause for some optimism regarding “Players,” starring Ice-T, which nearly equaled its premiere numbers and again ranked second in its time slot.

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: 21.81 million

CBS: 13.39

ABC: 11.71

FOX: 10.50

UPN: 4.31

WB: 4.18

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Season to Date

NBC: 16.52 million

CBS: 13.47

ABC: 12.68

FOX: 10.14

UPN: 4.57

WB: 4.06

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. World Series Postgame (Sun.) KNBC 1,577,907 2. The Simpsons (8 p.m.) KTTV 716,320 3. King of the Hill KTTV 706,301 The X-Files KTTV 706,301 5. “John Stossel Special” KABC 661,218 6. 60 Minutes KCBS 626,154 7. The Drew Carey Show KABC 601,108 8. Home Improvement KABC 581,071 9. The Simpsons (7:30 p.m.) KTTV 566,043 10. Dateline NBC (Mon.) KNBC 561,034 Dharma & Greg KABC 561,034

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