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NBC Ties Up ABC
The bad news? NBC is clamoring for a piece of you, just in time for May sweeps.
After dominating the Nielsen ratings for 17 straight weeks, ABC slipped into a dead heat with NBC last week, just in time for the beginning of the crucial May sweeps period.
Regis Philbin's game-show juggernaut Who Wants to be a Millionaire was indestructible as always, beating out Mike Wallace and his cerebral 60 Minutes gang in their first head-to-head battle. But NBC's ER returned to the top of the heap, drawing a 19.6 rating and some 27.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
That, combined with a Bruce Willis-powered episode of Friends Thursday night, gave NBC a boost just in time for the sweeps bonanza to begin. Friends nabbed a 14.7 rating and some 20.6 million viewers--which the network presumably hopes will continue when Willis returns for two more guest stints.
ABC's first installment of the miniseries Arabian Nights drew about a million more viewers than an earthy Chad Lowe in CBS' John Denver life story, Take Me Home. And maybe NBC should have included a few more Denver tunes in The '70s--the miniseries finished a distant third Sunday night.
For the week, both ABC and NBC had 8.9 ratings and 15 shares. But ABC's prime-time viewership of 13.2 million still beat out NBC's 12.4 million. CBS finished third with an average of 11 million viewers (7.7 rating, 13 share), followed by Fox with 8 million viewers (5.4 rating, 9 share). (A ratings point represents 1,008,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimate 100.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of turned-on TVs tuned to a particular show.)
Meanwhile, ABC's been shedding some dead weight to keep trim for its May sweeps fight. The network announced Monday it's yanking the Kyra Sedgwick sitcom, Talk to Me, after just three episodes, as well as the real-life boy-band chronicles Making the Band.
Both were scheduled to leave this week anyway, but the network is hoping reruns of The Drew Carey Show and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch will prove more successful during sweeps.
ABC may bring back the last two episodes of Talk to Me this summer. (Don't hold your breath.) The network also promises that Making the Band will return again once May sweeps are out of the way. The show, which features Lou Pearlman's latest bubblegum factory creation, O-Town, still has 16 episodes that haven't aired.
But we all know how that one will end, don't we?
Here's how the Nielsen top 10 stacked up overall:
1. ER, NBC, 19.6 rating, 32 share
2. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Tuesday), ABC, 17.0 rating, 28 share
3. Millionaire (Thursday), ABC, 16.0 rating, 24 share
4. Friends, NBC, 14.7 rating, 25 share
5. Frasier, NBC, 14.4 rating, 22 share
6. Frasier (9:30 p.m.), NBC, 13.0 rating, 20 share
6. Millionaire (Sunday), ABC, 13.0 rating, 25 share
8. Just Shoot Me, NBC, 12.9 rating, 21 share
9. Law and Order, NBC, 12.8 rating, 21 share
10. Touched by an Angel, CBS, 11.8 rating, 19 share
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