Newsmagazines, ‘Pelican’ Help CBS Land on Top

Getting a lift from “The Pelican Brief” and the continued strength of newsmagazines “60 Minutes” and “48 Hours,” CBS flew off with its fourth first-place finish in the last six weeks, based on results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Fox’s premiere of “Guinness World Records: Primetime”--featuring such oddities as a bug-eyed woman and the world’s biggest tumor--provided some endorsement for the idea of original summer programming, more than doubling the network’s average Tuesday night audience and decisively beating reruns of “Frasier” and “Spin City.” On the flip side, “Melrose Place” began its summer run July 27 by scoring its lowest rating for a new episode.

Fox also moved “King of the Hill” to its new 8 p.m. Tuesday slot last week, where the animated series topped NBC’s “Mad About You” but lagged behind ABC’s “Home Improvement.”

Despite CBS’ recent status as the most-watched network overall, NBC, thanks to its Thursday lineup, has still ranked first among adults age 18 to 49--the group most avidly sought by advertisers--for 18 consecutive weeks.

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Cable Top 10

Here are Nielsen’s top 10 cable programs in prime time last week, also ranked by total viewers (in millions).

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Program Network Viewers 1. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) USA 5.76 2. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) TNT 5.06 3. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) TNT 5.05 4. Wrestling (Mon., 8 p.m.) TNT 4.55 5. “Fire Down Below” HBO 4.35 6. Wrestling (Mon., 8:57 p.m.) USA 4.25 7. Sunday Night Baseball ESPN 3.71 8. Wrestling (Sun., 7 p.m.) USA 3.62 9. NFL Preseason Football ESPN 3.11 10. Rugrats NICK 3.03

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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

CBS: 9.38 million

NBC: 8.79

ABC: 7.35

FOX: 7.25

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. “Guinness World Records” KTTV 656,209 2. 60 Minutes KCBS 651,200 3. Just Shoot Me KNBC 631,163 4. Seinfeld KNBC 591,089 5. Friends KNBC 571,052 6. “Scariest Police Chases 3” KTTV 546,006 7. Melrose Place KTTV 530,978 8. 20/20 KABC 510,941 9. Frasier KNBC 500,923 10. The Simpsons KTTV 490,905

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