ABC Passes Field With Bowls, Millennium Coverage

ABC closed out the old year and rang in the new on winning notes, as its marathon millennium coverage and college football bowling teamed to provide the network an easy weeklong ratings victory, based on viewing estimates issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

“ABC 2000,” anchored by Peter Jennings, delivered the network’s biggest New Year’s Eve audience in nearly a decade--since an edition of Monday Night Football aired in 1990--and exceeded the combined prime-time audience for NBC and CBS. Tune-in for the Orange Bowl also paced ABC to first place on New Year’s night, although ratings fell by 7% below last year’s corresponding Sugar Bowl telecast.

CBS rebounded to score an easy win Sunday, as its lineup of “60 Minutes,” “Touched by an Angel” and the movie “Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder” held down the week’s top three spots against ABC’s Fiesta Bowl coverage. “The Simpsons” also made a rare Top 10 appearance, with its most watched episode since January.

Ratings for CBS’ showing of the Kennedy Center Honors dropped 13% compared to 1998, although part of that had to do with airing on a Thursday, putting the annual special up against reruns of NBC’s “Must-See TV” lineup.

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 Season week to date ABC 14.00 million 12.42 CBS 12.49 12.99 NBC 10.22 13.05 FOX 8.05 8.98 UPN 3.93 3.87 WB 3.02 3.95

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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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Sta- House- Program tion holds 1. “ABC 2000” (8:30 p.m.) KABC 847,292 2. “ABC 2000” (9 p.m.) KABC 806,211 3. Eyewitness News (8:15 p.m.) KABC 749,725 4. “ABC 2000” (10:30 p.m.) KABC 744,590 5. Eyewitness News (10:15) KABC 682,968 6. Friends KNBC 636,752 7. 60 Minutes KCBS 611,077 8. The Simpsons (8:30 p.m.) KTTV 600,807 9. The Simpsons KTTV 559,726 10. Touched by an Angel KCBS 534,050

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