TV Ratings : Country Music Has a Champion Sound for CBS

CBS placed only five programs among the Top 20 last week, but since one of them was three hours long, the defending prime-time champion was able to record its first victory of the young season.

Figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed that CBS’ nightlong coverage of the Country Music Assn. Awards on Wednesday, dominated by Vince Gill, ranked 11th among the week’s 92 prime-time network programs. The previous week, CBS’ highest rated Wednesday series had finished 57th.

After three weeks, CBS continues to rank third in the season standings, but the race is tight and the network says its new series are delivering 20% higher ratings than what the programs in the same time periods garnered during the last three months of 1993.

Overall, however, only NBC and Fox are showing higher ratings among all households compared to the first three weeks of last season. NBC, bolstered by an improved Tuesday lineup, is up 11% and Fox has gained 7%, while CBS is down 11% and ABC has lost 6%.

Southland Ratings

Here are A.C. Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. Each rating point equals 50,064 households.

Program Station Rating 1. Seinfeld KNBC 23.6 2. Home Improvement KABC 22.7 3. Beverly Hills, 90210 KTTV 19.9 4. ER KNBC 19.8 Roseanne KABC 19.8 6. Grace Under Fire KABC 18.7 7. Full House KABC 17.5 8. “Someone She Knows” KNBC 17.2 9. Ellen KABC 17.0 10. 60 Minutes KCBS 16.7

Weekly Averages

CBS: 12.1

NBC: 12.0

ABC: 10.9

FOX: 7.5

Season to Date

NBC: 12.1

ABC: 11.9

CBS: 11.8

FOX: 7.5

Source: A.C. Nielsen