CBS Sizzles With ’60 Minutes,’ ‘Raymond’

CBS’ Monday lineup and “60 Minutes” continue to buck the major networks’ summertime blues, leading CBS to its third ratings win in the last four weeks, based on results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Newsmagazines have consistently surpassed reruns of entertainment fare, with “60 Minutes” topping all regularly scheduled series for the third consecutive week. Excluding special events like baseball’s All-Star Game and the NBA playoffs, the venerable news program has been No. 1 six of the last seven weeks, bumped from that perch once by ABC’s “20/20.”

“Everybody Loves Raymond” is also cooking this summer, as the Ray Romano-Patricia Heaton comedy not only exceeded the tune-in for NBC’s Thursday sitcoms last week but garnered an Emmy Award nomination as best comedy.

ABC moved several sitcoms into new time slots, with encouraging results for “Dharma & Greg,” which easily defeated the competition in its new Tuesday digs, “Just Shoot Me.” “Angels in the Outfield” also did better than the real Angels have lately, delivering “The Wonderful World of Disney’s” biggest crowd in 10 weeks.

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.) USA 7.68 2. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) USA 6.75 3. Wrestling (Sun., 7 p.m.) USA 4.90 4. Wrestling (Mon., 8 p.m.) TNT 4.21 5. “Road House” USA 4.01 6. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) TNT 3.96 7. “Wrongfully Accused” HBO 3.73 8. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) TNT 3.70 9. Wrestling (Thur., 9:06 p.m.) TBS 3.43 10. Hey, Arnold NICK 3.31

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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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Las tweek Season to date CBS 8.86 million 12.25 million NBC 8.05 11.91 ABC 7.94 11,00 FOX 5.80 9.80 WB 3.10 4.22 UPN 1.97 2.59

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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. Friends KNBC 662,428 2. Frasier (9:30 p.m.) KNBC 611,077 3. Frasier (9 p.m.) KNBC 575,131 4. Dharma & Greg KABC 477,564 Jesse KNBC 477,564 6. Whose Line Is It Anyway? KABC 467,294 7. Will & Grace KNBC 446,754 8. The Drew Carey Show KABC 436,484 9. “Seduction in a Small Town” KABC 415,943 10. 60 Minutes KCBS 400,538

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