Prime-Time TV Rankings : ‘Millionaire’ Hits the Jackpot

ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” ended its two-week summer run in spectacular fashion, with five of its six telecasts ranking among the week’s Top 10 shows, based on ratings estimates issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Viewing of the quiz show peaked Sunday, even against a preseason NFL football game on Fox. Overall, ABC’s audience soared more than 20% compared to the corresponding week a year ago, demonstrating how “Millionaire?” recruited viewers during a traditionally dead period for the networks. On Thursday, for example, the show more than doubled the audience of the ABC program preceding it, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?,” as well as its time-slot competition on NBC, “Jesse.”

UPN got a jump on the new TV season by premiering some of its shows against other networks’ reruns. The network dramatically improved its Thursday ratings with “WWF Smackdown!” but didn’t pin down as many viewers as wrestling drew earlier last week on USA. HBO, meanwhile, scored huge numbers by its standards with its 90-minute live Cher concert from Vegas Sunday, trailing only cable wrestling.

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 6.63 2. Wrestling (Mon. 9 p.m.) USA 6.60 3. Cher: Live HBO 6.03 4. Wrestling (Sun. 7 p.m.) USA 4.64 5. Wrestling (Mon. 8 p.m.) TNT 4.06 6. Sex and the City HBO 3.88 7. Braves vs. Cardinals ESPN 3.57 8. Oz HBO 3.44 9. Ever After HBO 3.42 10. Wrestling (Mon. 10 p.m.) TNT 3.34

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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 10.72 million 10.76 CBS 9.05 11.93 NBC 8.53 11.53 FOX 7.99 9.47 WB 2.81 4.09 UPN 3.36 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. Millionaire KABC 749,725 2. Millionaire KABC 734,319 Millionaire KABC 734,319 4. Will & Grace KNBC 698,374 5. Millionaire KABC 590,537 6. Friends KNBC 569,996 7. “Best Commercials Never Seen” KABC 564,861 8. Will & Grace (9 p.m.) KNBC 528,915 9. Frasier KNBC 482,699 10. “Die Hard 3” KTTV 477,564

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