‘60 Minutes’ Maintains Its Grip

The clock keeps right on ticking for “60 Minutes,” as the venerable newsmagazine topped theratings for the third time in four weeks--its best run since 1993, according to results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

With newsmagazines continuing to beat up reruns of sitcoms and dramas, highlights for the latter genres were few and far between. “Just Shoot Me,” starring David Spade, continues to impress as part of NBC’s Thursday lineup, last week easily outperforming “Seinfeld,” which has lost steam since its big farewell episode.

Even high-rated miniseries have done little to shake up the ratings, the most recent fizzle coming from the opening part of CBS’ “Gone With the Wind” sequel, “Scarlett,” on Sunday. ABC fared slightly better with Stephen King’s “The Stand,” whose concluding chapter provided its best Thursday night results since April.

According to Fox, a technical problem with satellite transmission interrupted “The Simpsons” for 15 minutes in the Eastern and Central time zones Sunday, hurting ratings for the night’s prime-time lineup.

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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.) 5.25 USA 2. Wrestling (Mon. 10 p.m.) 5.00 TNT 3. Wrestling (Mon. 8 p.m.) 4.89 TNT 4. Wrestling (Mon. 9 p.m.) 4.73 USA 5. Wrestling (Thurs. 10 p.m.) 4.44 TBS 6. Wrestling (Mon. 9 p.m.) 4.23 TNT 7. Wrestling (Thurs. 9 p.m.) 4.18 TBS 8. “Batman and Robin” 4.11 HBO 9. “Face/Off” 4.10 HBO 10. World Championship Boxing 3.86 HBO

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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 8.85 million 14.10 CBS 8.77 13.11 ABC 7.87 11.40 FOX 6.28 9.80 WB 3.49 4.24 UPN 2.34 3.72

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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 701,292 2. Just Shoot Me KNBC 671,237 3. 60 Minutes KCBS 586,080 4. Frasier KNBC 581,071 5. Dateline: NBC (Tue.) KNBC 520,960 6. ER KNBC 515,951 7. Home Improvement KABC 510,941 8. Suddenly Susan KNBC 505,932 9. “Sleep, Baby, Sleep” KABC 495,914 10. Ally McBeal KTTV 490,905

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