Lakers Lead NBC to Victory
The NBA championship game limped out a winner. The Lakers’ threepeat clincher against the Nets last Wednesday was the most-watched TV program of the week, with an average audience of 16.56 million people, but that was 17% lower than Game 4 drew last year, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released Tuesday.
Overall, in fact, ratings for the entire Los Angeles-New Jersey series on NBC were down by 17% from last year, doubtless a reflection of this year’s one-sided matchup. The event moves to ABC next year.
NBC won the weekly competition among the networks for the seventh week in a row, thanks to the performance of the basketball game, the “Dateline NBC” franchise and strong showings Sunday for a repeat of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and the premiere of “Crime & Punishment,” another offering from producer Dick Wolf.
Also premiering strongly last week was the Fox unscripted summer series “American Idol: The Search for a Superstar.” Its first telecast on Tuesday attracted 9.85 million viewers; the second showing one night later jumped to 11.24 million to finish among the week’s Top 10.
Lee Margulies
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National Nielsen Viewership
Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (June 10-16) 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 there are 269 million potential viewers in the U.S. age 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.
*--* Program Net- work View- ers 1 Lakers-Nets (Wed.) NBC 16.56 2 CSI CBS 16.02 3 Everybody Loves Raymond CBS 14.04 4 Becker CBS 12.25 5 Law & Order: Criminal Intent NBC 12.06 6 American Idol (Wed.) FOX 11.24 7 48 Hours (Mon.) CBS 11.20 8 Crime & Punishment NBC 11.03 9 Dateline NBC (Sun.) NBC 10.71 10 60 Minutes CBS 10.43 11 “Price Is Right: U.S. Army” CBS 10.09 12 American Idol (Tue.) FOX 9.85 13 King of Queens CBS 9.82 14 NBA Finals Tip-Off (Wed.) NBC 9.80 15 Spy TV (Mon., 9:30 p.m.) NBC 9.79 16 Yes, Dear CBS 9.77 17 “The Negotiator” CBS 9.74 18 Friends NBC 9.47 19 Fear Factor NBC 9.43 20 60 Minutes II CBS 8.95 21 20/20 (Fri.) ABC 8.90 22 The Agency CBS 8.72 23 Crossing Jordan NBC 8.65 24 “AFI 100 Years, 100 Passions” CBS 8.57 25 Dateline NBC (Fri.) NBC 8.52 26 Dateline NBC (Tue.) NBC 8.50 27 Will & Grace (8:30 p.m.) NBC 8.40 Law & Order: SVU NBC 8.40 29 Will & Grace NBC 8.20 30 ER NBC 8.17 31 America’s Most Wanted FOX 7.85 32 Frasier NBC 7.69 33 The District CBS 7.51 34 Spy TV (Tue., 8 p.m.) NBC 7.36 35 My Wife & Kids ABC 7.32 36 Spy TV (Tue., 8:30 p.m.) NBC 7.14 37 Just Shoot Me NBC 7.11 38 Mole II: The Next Betrayal ABC 6.93 39 Scrubs NBC 6.88 40 Hurricanes-Red Wings (Thu.) ABC 6.85 41 According to Jim ABC 6.79 42 That ‘70s Show FOX 6.70 43 King of the Hill FOX 6.67 44 Cops (8:30 p.m.) FOX 6.64 45 The West Wing NBC 6.59 46 The Drew Carey Show ABC 6.43 47 The Simpsons FOX 6.22 48 Funniest Home Videos ABC 6.10 49 Boston 24/7 (Tue.) ABC 6.02 50 “Joan of Arc” Part 2 CBS 5.87 51 Spin City ABC 5.67 52 “Boston 24/7” (Wed.) ABC 5.65 53 Cops FOX 5.60 54 WWE Smackdown! UPN 5.52 55 Malcolm in Middle (Wed.) FOX 5.39 56 The Simpsons (Mon.) FOX 5.30 57 The District CBS 5.21 58 Red Wings-Hurricanes (Mon.) ABC 5.11 59 48 Hours CBS 5.05 60 “Sphere” NBC 4.93 61 The Practice ABC 4.88 “Toy Story” ABC 4.88 63 The Guardian CBS 4.81 64 My Adventures on TV ABC 4.71 65 JAG CBS 4.67 66 Malcolm in the Middle (Mon.) FOX 4.55 67 That ‘70s Show (Mon.) FOX 4.51 Touched by an Angel CBS 4.51 69 “Looking: Bachelorettes” FOX 4.49 “Lost in Space” FOX 4.49 71 “Tampering With Nature” ABC 4.46 72 Grounded for Life FOX 4.10 73 “From Russia With Love” ABC 4.08 74 Smallville WB 4.01 75 Futurama (7:30 p.m.) FOX 3.56 76 7th Heaven WB 3.47 77 Alias ABC 3.40 78 Girlfriends UPN 3.33 79 The Parkers UPN 3.13 80 Gilmore Girls WB 2.95 81 One on One UPN 2.79 82 Jamie Kennedy (8:30 p.m.) WB 2.69 83 Dark Angel FOX 2.68 84 Jamie Kennedy (8 p.m.) WB 2.66 Futurama (7 p.m.) WB 2.66 86 “The Wood” UPN 2.55 87 Reba WB 2.48 88 The Hughleys UPN 2.39 89 Charmed WB 2.36 90 The X-Files FOX 2.31 91 Raising Dad WB 2.15 92 Enterprise UPN 2.13 93 Sabrina, the Teenage Witch WB 1.95 94 Dawson’s Creek WB 1.83 95 Wolf Lake UPN 1.76 96 The Hughleys (Tue.) UPN 1.67 97 “The Big Hit” WB 1.52 Angel WB 1.52 99 Buffy the Vampire Slayer UPN 1.49 100 Girlfriends (Tue.) UPN 1.48 101 Maybe It’s Me WB 1.42 102 Angel (Sun.) WB 1.29
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*--* Network Averages Here is the number of viewers (in millions) that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season Network Last week Season to date NBC 9.54 13.14 CBS 8.49 11.93 FOX 5.73 8.86 ABC 5.55 9.35 UPN 2.89 4.18 WB 2.22 3.67
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