NBC Grabs Early Lead in November Sweeps Derby

NBC got a good jump out of the starting gate in the November sweeps race, with generally strong performances from its Thursday and Friday lineups as well as Sunday’s “Saturday Night Live” election special, which easily outpolled the first half of CBS’ Jackie Onassis drama in viewing estimates issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Fox’s Sunday lineup, delayed until after the World Series, also made a more-than-respectable debut with “The Simpsons,” “Malcolm in the Middle” and “The X-Files.” The Fox drama was down 11% compared to last season’s premiere, but that was before “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” invaded its time slot.

The sweeps officially began on Thursday, where the NBC sitcom “Cursed,” starring Steven Weber, looked only so-so in its second week, dropping about 25% from its “Friends” lead-in. NBC can point to two pillars of “appointment viewing” on Tuesday and Wednesday nights in “Frasier” and “The West Wing,” respectively, with both overcoming mediocre results for the NBC shows leading into them to dominate their time periods.

ABC, meanwhile, is struggling with all four of its new series and got dismal ratings Saturday with the Radio Music Awards, which previously played on the WB network. The network did deliver its biggest “Wonderful World of Disney” audience since February with a “Growing Pains” reunion movie.

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 NBC 13.26 million 12.40 ABC 12.51 12.92 CBS 11.77 12.50 FOX 10.42 10.47 UPN 4.26 4.42 WB 4.17 4.34

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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. Friends KNBC 1,103,233 2. The West Wing KNBC 878,302 3. ER KNBC 872,947 4. Will & Grace KNBC 862,236 5. Law & Order KNBC 808,681 6. The Practice KABC 690,860 7. Cursed KNBC 685,504 8. Just Shoot Me KNBC 658,727 9. Ally McBeal KTTV 653,371 10. Frasier KNBC 642,660

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