ABC, CBS and NBC's average prime time audience of 42.2 million this season is down from 45.3 million at the same time a year ago, Nielsen Media Research said Tuesday. Meanwhile, Fox's gain of 930,000 average viewers makes it the success story so far this fall. WB's audience is up while UPN, which just changed its leadership, is flat. NBC was the top-rated network again last week, with ABC narrowly edging CBS in a spirited race for second place.
Audiences seem to be tuning out most of the networks' new shows.
But it's hard to say how much their success depends upon being part of NBC's juggernaut Thursday lineup, which accounts for all five of the top-rated shows. For the week, NBC had a 10.1 rating and 17 share, ABC had a 9.1 rating and 16 share, CBS had a 9.1 rating and 15 share, Fox had a 7.1 rating and 12 share, UPN had a 3.4 rating and 5 share and the WB had a 3.1 rating and 5 share. A rating point represents 980,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 98 million TV homes. Share is the percentage of those televisions in use that are tuned to a given show during a specified time period. NBC, which claimed about 100,000 more viewers than ABC, did not include Wednesday and Friday news shows in the ratings because of pre-emptions due to baseball playoffs.