Football, Miss America Lead ABC to Rare Win

The unlikely combination of “Monday Night Football” and the Miss America Pageant gave ABC its first winning score in the weekly standings since televising the Academy Awards in March, according to results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

CBS’ Sunday lineup also received a strong lead block from NFL football, which spilled into prime time in Eastern time zones and helped drive the season premieres of “Touched by an Angel,” “60 Minutes” and the Walter Matthau-Carol Burnett movie “The Marriage Fool” to the top of the ratings.

In another key move, NBC’s “Frasier” inherited

“Seinfeld’s” time slot in reasonably impressive fashion, despite airing a rerun against unusually high-powered competition: ABC’s showing of “Lethal Weapon 3.” “Miss America,” meanwhile, looked a bit less shapely Saturday, with its audience declining 25% compared to last year.

The strategy of premiering series early hasn’t paid off thus far for Fox, with its new sitcoms “Living in Captivity” and “Costello” already looking like possible also-rans. Even “That ‘70s Show,” which exhibited promise initially, appeared shaky Sunday, losing more than a fifth of those who viewed its lead-in, “The Simpsons.”

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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. Pro Football (Sun.) ESPN 7.20 2. Wrestling (Mon., 8 p.m.) TNT 5.28 3. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) TNT 4.93 4. “The Devil’s Advocate” HBO 4.84 5. Wrestling (Thurs., 9:03 p.m.) TBS 4.51 6. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) TNT 4.23 7. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) USA 4.19 8. NFL Primetime ESPN 4.09 9. Wrestling (Sun., 7 p.m.) USA 3.93 10. “Autopsy 5: Dead Men/Tales” HBO 3.91

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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 ABC 11.40 million 10.93 CBS 11.00 12.48 NBC 10.40 13.35 FOX 9.10 9.43 WB 3.40 4.07 UPN 2.60 3.49

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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. Ally McBeal KTTV 846,560 Frasier KNBC 846,560 3. Frasier KNBC 781,440 4. Friends KNBC 721,329 5. 60 Minutes KCBS 711,311 6. ER KNBC 686,265 7. The Simpsons KTTV 641,181 8. Touched by an Angel KCBS 636,172 “The Marriage Fool” KCBS 636,172 10. Beverly Hills, 90210 KTTV 626,154

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