ABC’s 16th Straight Win Has a Biblical Feature

“The Ten Commandments” proved to be a far bigger attraction than a $10-million giveaway, as the biblical epic helped lead ABC to its 16th consecutive weekly victory, based on viewing estimates issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

ABC’s 20th telecast of the 1956 film starring Charlton Heston delivered its biggest audience since 1996, leaving a rather poor feast for the CBS movie “Picnic” and holding “The X-Files” to its lowest rating for an original episode since the 7-year-old program’s first season.

CBS, meanwhile, tried to reel in viewers with the promise of winning cash on an IWon.com special (a Web site partly owned by CBS) but drew a smaller audience than “Early Edition” normally does in the same Saturday slot. NBC actually fared worse that night with its NBA basketball coverage, which continues to misfire ratings-wise--possibly a bad sign for playoff games scheduled to begin this week.

Harrison Ford brought some star power to the American Film Institute’s annual tribute, which scored higher ratings than previous AFI events honoring Dustin Hoffman, Robert Wise and Martin Scorsese.

In terms of midseason series, NBC canceled “Battery Park” after its last low-wattage outing, while ABC’s new sitcom “Talk to Me” won its time period but lost almost 30% of the audience that viewed “Dharma & Greg.”

Cable Top 10

Here are Nielsen’s top 10 cable programs in prime time last week, also ranked by total viewers (in millions).

*--*

Net- View- Program work ers 1. “Walking With Dinosaurs” DISC 10.76 2. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) USA 7.47 3. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) USA 6.20 4. “The Matrix” HBO 4.34 5. Wrestling (Mon., 8 p.m.) TNT 3.89 6. “The Game” TBS 3.70 7. “Kids Choice Awards NICK 3.70 8. “Prince of Egypt” HBO 3.65 9. Boxing HBO 3.61 10. “Jailbait” MTV 3.49

*--*

Network Averages

Here is the number of viewers that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

*--*

Last Season week to date ABC 13.35 million 14.19 NBC 10.39 12.37 CBS 9.68 12.59 FOX 7.59 9.12 UPN 3.56 3.91 WB 3.13 3.69

*--*

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.

*--*

Sta- House- Program tion holds 1. Millionaire (Tue.) KABC 942,246 2. ER KNBC 937,011 3. Millionaire (Thur.) KABC 774,736 4. Friends KNBC 727,623 5. 60 Minutes KCBS 617,695 6. “The Ten Commandments” KABC 601,991 7. Dharma & Greg KABC 570,582 8. NYPD Blue KABC 565,348 9. The Drew Carey Show KABC 560,113 10. Once & Again KABC 539,174 Talk to Me KABC 539,174

*--*