XFL Debut Puts a Kick in NBC’s Saturday Night

The paths of two football leagues crossed over the weekend, as the NFL capped off its season on a muted note with the Pro Bowl game while the World Wrestling Federation-backed XFL made its debut to ratings as gaudy as the cheerleader outfits, based on viewing estimates issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Inaugural XFL games delivered NBC’s biggest Saturday-night audience this season for anything except the World Series and the Olympics, performing especially well among male demographics. On the down side, ratings dropped 30% from the first half-hour to the last, indicating many curious viewers tuned out. NBC had been running movies on the night.

The week’s other big story involved “Survivor: The Australian Outback,” whose arrival on Thursdays coincided with the start of the February rating sweeps. Emerging as the night’s most-watched show, the CBS program helped the series that followed, “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” achieve its highest rating so far. NBC’s “Must-See TV” lineup mostly weathered the assault, though last week’s “Friends”--expanded to 40 minutes--finished behind eight of the 11 previous original episodes broadcast this season.

With football preempting ABC’s “The Wonderful World of Disney,” Fox’s “The Simpsons” and “Malcolm in the Middle” reached season-high levels and “The X-Files” tracked down its biggest audience since mid-November.

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 NBC 13.59 million 12.17 CBS 13.35 12.46 ABC 11.77 13.07 FOX 10.13 9.94 WB 4.08 3.96 UPN 3.56 3.98

*--*