NBC Wins Week While ABC Has Ups, Downs

The verdict remained mixed on original summer programs last week, with NBC occupying the winner’s circle overall thanks to a combination of news and its Thursday lineup, according to results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Among summer tryouts, ABC’s sketch comedy “Whose Line Is It Anyway?,” hosted by Drew Carey, turned in an impressive second-week performance, building on the audience of the comic’s eponymous sitcom against another fill-in show, NBC’s “Stressed Eric.” On the down side, ABC’s “Maximum Bob,” starring Beau Bridges, saw its audience fall 23% from its premiere.

Newsmagazines remain hot this summer. CBS’ “60 Minutes” emerged as the most-watched series for the seventh time in eight weeks, while “Dateline NBC” caught the “Titanic” wave last Wednesday with footage of that salvage operation.

In a timely bit of scheduling, TBS’ telecast of the art-imitates-life movie “The American President” Sunday delivered the highest rating ever for a feature film on basic cable; still, to put that in perspective, that audience would have ranked just 58th on the major networks, which are more widely available than the cable channel.

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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. “The American President” TBS 7.33 2. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) TNT 5.35 3. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) USA 5.34 4. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) TNT 5.17 5. Wrestling (Thurs., 9:05 p.m.) TBS 5.04 6. Wrestling (Mon., 8 p.m.) TNT 4.96 7. “Titanic Live” DISC 4.60 8. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) USA 4.51 9. “Amer. President” (Sun., 10:30) TBS 4.12 10. Wrestling (Thurs., 8:05 p.m.) TBS 4.02

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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.

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Last week Season to date NBC 9.13 million 13.66 CBS 8.94 12.77 ABC 7.77 11.08 FOX 7.09 9.56 WB 3.22 4.16 UPN 2.47 3.61

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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 761,403 2. ER KNBC 711,311 3. Just Shoot Me KNBC 701,292 4. Suddenly Susan KNBC 656,209 5. Dateline NBC (Wed.) KNBC 601,108 6. Friends KNBC 596,098 60 Minutes KCBS 596,098 8. Whose Line Is It Anyway? KABC 556,025 9. Guinness World Records KTTV 540,997 10. Dateline NBC (Tue.) KNBC 530,978

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