‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Frasier’ Give NBC a Thursday Presence

“Seinfeld” regained its prime-time throne heading into the final few weeks of its NBC reign, unseating “60 Minutes” as the most-watched series for only the second time in 10 weeks, according to results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

NBC’s “Frasier,” meanwhile, worked overtime last week, with two Thursday airings finishing in the Top 10 and a third showing Tuesday. NBC is giving the Kelsey Grammer comedy all that exposure seeking to bolster its status as the heir to “Seinfeld’s” time slot.

Network ratings are exhibiting some life as summer winds down, helped by the continuedstrength of replacements “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and “Guinness World Records: Primetime,” which drew its biggest audience yet last week. Fox has ordered more episodes of “Guinness” and plans to keep running the show into the fall. In addition, Fox’s sitcom “That ‘70s Show” held up well in its second outing Sunday, again improving on its lead-in audience from “The Simpsons.”

The Aug. 24 edition of “Monday Night Football”--a Super Bowl rematch between Denver and Green Bay--provided ABC a lift, scoring the highest rating for a preseason game in three years.

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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., 8 p.m.) TNT 5.89 2. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) TNT 5.82 3. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) USA 5.44 4. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) TNT 5.29 5. Sunday Night Baseball ESPN 5.06 6. South Park COMC 4.98 7. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) USA 4.65 8. “Soul Food” HBO 4.44 9. Pro Football (Sat.) ESPN 4.19 10. Wrestling (Wed., 9:05 p.m.) TBS 4.03

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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.

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Last week Season to date NBC 10.08 million 13.50 CBS 9:52 12.64 ABC 8.89 10.99 FOX 7.87 9.48 WB 3.35 4.12 UPN 2.16 3.55

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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 831,532 2. Fraiser (Thu., 8:30 p.m.) KNBC 751,385 3. Frasier (Thu., 9:30 p.m.) KNBC 691,274 4. Friends KNBC 686,265 5. Dateline NBC (Mon.) KNBC 656,209 60 Minutes KCBS 656,209 7. ER KNBC 591,089 8. “Tombstone” KTTV 586,080 9. The Simpsons KTTV 561,034 10. Ally McBeal KTTV 556,025

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