Viewers Tempted by New ‘Reality’ Series

The midseason invasion of so-called reality series got off to a reasonably good start last week, with solid tune-in for “Temptation Island”--more than tripling Fox’s audience in its Wednesday time slot--and to a lesser degree ABC’s “The Mole” and the WB’s “Popstars,” based on viewing estimates issued by Nielsen Media Research.

ABC ranked first for the fourth straight week, aided by a season-high audience for “The Practice” and better-than-usual Monday ratings thanks to the American Music Awards, which nevertheless continued its downward spiral relative to previous telecasts.

ABC’s decision to move an edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” to Fridays, meanwhile, appears to have helped CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” as viewers fled ABC’s sitcoms for the new crime drama starring William Petersen, which attracted its biggest audience thus far. In similar fashion, ratings for NBC’s “Law & Order” soared last Wednesday, apparently picking up viewers who boated over from “Temptation Island” as well as “The West Wing.”

NBC’s new Thursday comedy “The Weber Show”--already scheduled to disappear temporarily during the February sweeps--looked especially anemic, losing 30% of those who viewed “Friends” during the preceding half-hour; by contrast, ABC’s “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” gained more than 3.5 million viewers after 8:30 p.m.

National Nielsen Viewership

Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (Jan. 8-14) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Nielsen estimates that there are 260 million potential U.S. viewers age 2 and older. Viewership is listed here in millions.

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Net- View- Program work ers 1. ER NBC 28.35 2. Friends NBC 22.86 3. Millionaire (Wed.) ABC 20.85 4. The Practice ABC 20.62 5. Millionaire (Sun.) ABC 20.44 6. Law & Order NBC 20.34 7. Every. Loves Raymond CBS 20.27 8. Will & Grace NBC 19.86 9. Millionaire (Thur.) ABC 18.10 Frasier NBC 18.10 11. Just Shoot Me NBC 18.01 12. The West Wing NBC 17.66 13. CSI CBS 17.49 14. 60 Minutes CBS 17.44 15. Becker CBS 17.09 16. NYPD Blue ABC 16.41 17. Three Sisters NBC 16.31 18. “American Music Awards” ABC 16.20 19. Temptation Island FOX 16.10 20. Millionaire (Fri.) ABC 16.07 21. The Weber Show NBC 15.98 22. JAG CBS 15.26 23. King of Queens CBS 15.21 24. The Simpsons FOX 15.01 25. Malcolm in the Middle FOX 14.86 26. Law & Order: SVU NBC 14.85 27. Judging Amy CBS 13.86 28. The Mole ABC 13.74 29. Yes, Dear CBS 13.66 30. The Drew Carey Show ABC 13.56 31. Boston Public FOX 13.53 32. Providence NBC 13.50 33. That ‘70s Show FOX 13.16 34. “Tomorrow Never Dies” CBS 13.09 35. 20/20 (Fri.) ABC 13.02 36. Family Law CBS 12.98 37. Whose Line Is It? (8:30 p.m.) ABC 12.91 38. Grounded for Life FOX 12.68 39. Ally McBeal FOX 12.56 40. Dharma & Greg ABC 12.47 41. Dateline NBC (Tue.) NBC 12.42 42. PrimeTime Thursday ABC 12.18 43. Dateline NBC (Fri.) NBC 12.15 44. Nash Bridges CBS 12.05 45. “Dodson’s Journey” CBS 11.80 46. The X-Files FOX 11.69 47. 60 Minutes II CBS 11.67 That ‘70s Show (Wed.) FOX 11.67 49. Titus FOX 11.56 50. Spin City ABC 11.47 51. The District CBS 11.46 52. Ed NBC 11.08 Dark Angel FOX 11.08 54. Diagnosis Murder CBS 11.06 55. “Jungle 2 Jungle” ABC 10.90 56. Dateline NBC (Sun.) NBC 10.67 57. “Men in Black” NBC 10.57 58. Cops (8:30 p.m.) FOX 10.50 59. The Geena Davis Show ABC 10.36 60. America’s Most Wanted FOX 10.06 61. King of the Hill FOX 9.83 62. Once and Again ABC 9.37 Whose Line Is It Anyway? ABC 9.37 64. “The Fifth Element” ABC 9.31 65. Walker, Texas Ranger CBS 9.16 66. Cops FOX 9.11 67. Dag CBS 8.69 68. Police Videos FOX 8.32 69. Third Watch NBC 8.27 70. Dateline NBC (Mon.) NBC 8.23 71. Diagnosis Murder (9 p.m.) CBS 8.10 72. Bette CBS 7.93 73. 3rd Rock From the Sun NBC 7.91 74. Two Guys and a Girl ABC 7.76 75. The Fugitive CBS 7.51 76. WWF Smackdown! UPN 7.45 77. Mysterious Ways NBC 7.29 78. 48 Hours CBS 7.24 79. Futurama FOX 7.15 80. That’s Life CBS 6.90 81. “Scream” FOX 6.82 82. Welcome to New York CBS 6.66 83. Norm ABC 6.37 84. “Dixie Chicks: On the Fly” NBC 5.97 85. Gary and Mike (Thur.) UPN 5.61 86. 7th Heaven WB 5.20 87. Charmed WB 5.12 88. “Batman Forever” NBC 4.94 89. Dawson’s Creek WB 4.87 90. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer WB 4.85 91. Popstars WB 4.53 92. Gilmore Girls WB 4.32 93. Freakylinks FOX 4.15 94. Sabrina, the Teenage Witch WB 4.05 95. Sabrina, Teen. Witch (8:30) WB 3.84 96. Star Trek: Voyager UPN 3.69 97. 7 Days UPN 3.51 98. “Cheating Spouses” UPN 3.26 99. Gary and Mike (Fri.) UPN 3.13 100. “Rubicon Conspiracy” UPN 3.09 101. The Steve Harvey Show WB 3.07 102. Angel WB 3.05 103. Jack & Jill WB 2.88 104. The Jamie Foxx Show WB 2.82 105. Moesha UPN 2.71 106. Celebrity Death Match UPN 2.70 107. The Hughleys UPN 2.66 108. Nikki WB 2.59 109. The Parkers UPN 2.53 110. Roswell WB 2.42 111. The PJs WB 2.28 112. Hype WB 2.27 113. Girlfriends UPN 2.26 114. Grosse Pointe WB 1.99

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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 13.69 million 13.35 CBS 12.49 11.86 NBC 12.30 12.13 FOX 10.59 9.91 UPN 3.86 4.04 WB 3.75 4.00

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