‘Millionaire’s’ Celebrities Help Sweep ABC to Win

The latest celebrity edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” provided the dominant centerpiece of a lineup that staked ABC to victory during the first full week of the November rating sweeps, based on viewing estimates issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

A new “The Miracle Worker,” starring Alison Elliott, attracted ABC’s biggest “Wonderful World of Disney” audience in a year, followed by “Millionaire” and “The Practice,” which delivered their highest ratings since June and May, respectively.

Fox, meanwhile, held its own behind “The X-Files,” “The Simpsons” and “Malcolm in the Middle,” producing the network’s best Sunday performance since January. That left CBS’ O.J. Simpson miniseries “American Tragedy” and NBC’s “In the Beginning” splitting the remainder of the Sunday night vote, garnering mediocre returns for expensive, heavily promoted sweeps projects.

An overtime game between Green Bay and Minnesota helped “Monday Night Football” score its third-highest rating this season. Still, CBS’ “Everybody Loves Raymond” continues to sizzle, with the show averaging almost 21 million viewers--a 20% increase compared to its first six telecasts last year.

NBC boasted the most-watched election coverage, though that rating didn’t equal tune-in for the fictional presidency of “The West Wing,” followed by the season’s top-rated “Law & Order.”

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 14.13 million 13.13 NBC 13.61 12.61 CBS 11.77 12.38 FOX 9.38 10.31 WB 4.77 4.41 UPN 4.53 4.44

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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 1,022,901 2. ER KNBC 980,057 3. Will & Grace KNBC 878,302 4. News Decision 2000 KNBC 797,970 5. The West Wing KNBC 755,126 6. Election Coverage (9 p.m.) KABC 739,059 7. Election Coverage (8 p.m.) KABC 696,215 8. “American Tragedy” Part 1 KCBS 685,504 9. Millionaire (Sun.) KABC 680,149 10. 2000 Vote KABC 664,082

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