Revelers Leave NBC Alone on New Year’s Eve

NBC woke up from New Year’s Eve with a fourth-place hangover. The holiday’s timing sent viewing of the network’s top-rated Thursday programs tumbling, allowing CBS’ Sunday lineup and Fox’s “The X-Files” to push ahead in the weekly standings, based on results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Many programs were still in rerun mode due to the holiday, which proved least damaging to CBS. “Diagnosis Murder,” for example, actually beat “Frasier,” as more of the Dick Van Dyke mystery series’ older audience stayed home.

ABC went bowling Friday and Saturday, with the Rose Bowl remaining the “granddaddy of themall” from a ratings standpoint as well, with the portion of the game that spilled over into prime time. Fox received an even bigger lift from the NFL playoffs, as the 49ers’ thrilling last-second victory over the Packers drew an enormous audience Sunday afternoon, helping “X-Files,” starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, mark down its highest rating since its season premiere and “The Simpsons” hit a season high.

“Monday Night Football” ended its 1998 run averaging 19.6 million viewers, a 6% drop versus last year. Part of that stems from an earlier kickoff time this season that negatively affected viewing on the West Coast.

Cable Top 10

Nielsen’s top 10 cable programs were not available at press time.

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 CBS 13.65 million 13.15 ABC 12.85 12.27 FOX 11.28 10.63 NBC 10.25 12.32 WB 4.46 4.54 UPN 2.05 2.71

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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. 60 Minutes KCBS 980,804 2. The X-Files KTTV 693,239 3. Touched by an Angel KCBS 667,563 4. “Sabrina” KCBS 647,023 5. “Magic’s Biggest Secrets 3” KTTV 636,752 6. “Heat” KNBC 554,591 7. “Magic’s Biggest Secrets 2” KTTV 539,186 “Kennedy Center Honors” KCBS 539,186 9. The Simpsons KTTV 513,510 10. “World’s Greatest Hoaxes” KTTV 503,240 Spin City KABC 503,240

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