Fox a Winner Despite Super Bowl’s Tepid Showing
The lowest-rated Super Bowl since 1990 still hoisted Fox onto the victory stand last week, although disappointing results for the game between Denver and Atlanta and a lengthy postgame show hurt a preview of the animated comedy “Family Guy” and an episode of “The Simpsons” that followed, based on results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.
Even with poor ratings for the Super Bowl and its October World Series telecasts, those major sporting events have helped Fox climb into an unprecedented first-place tie with NBC, on a season-to-date basis, among the young adults most sought by advertisers. Fox still ranks fourth, however, in overall viewing.
A one-sided affair featuring an MVP performance by Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway, the Super Bowl audience dropped significantly compared to a year ago, while viewing of Fox’s animated shows dipped nearly 40% below NBC’s postgame “3rd Rock From the Sun” last year.
With most of ABC’s Tuesday lineup in reruns, a Jan. 26 showing of the prison drama “The Shawshank Redemption” easily won that night. As a testament to network TV’s reach, CBS noted that more than twice as many people watched the film on the network as saw it during its theatrical run.
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 (Sun. 8 p.m.) USA 8.90 2. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) USA 6.51 3. Wrestling (Mon., 8 p.m.) TNT 6.03 4. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) USA 5.90 5. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) TNT 5.34 6. “Deathbowl ‘99” MTV 4.91 7. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) TNT 4.87 8. Wrestling (Thur., 9 p.m.) TBS 4.77 9. Wrestling (Thur., 8 p.m.) TBS 4.60 10. Wrestling (Sun., 7 p.m.) USA 3.94
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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 FOX 24.52 million 11.43 CBS 11.61 13.22 NBC 10.38 12.47 ABC 9.68 12.09 WB 4.45 4.57 UPN 3.01 2.72
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Southland Viewing
Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week were unavailable at press time.