‘DOLLY,’ NBC STAR IN NEW NIELSEN LIST

Dolly Parton’s initial effort to revive the TV variety show met with resounding success on ABC Sunday night, finishing as the fifth-most-watched program of the week, but it was two-time defending champion NBC that won the first week of the new prime-time television season, the A.C. Nielsen Co. reported Tuesday.

With “The Cosby Show” in its familiar No. 1 spot and the three comedies that follow it on Thursday nights in Positions 2, 3 and 4, NBC posted an average rating for the week that ended Sunday of 16.4--representing 14.5 million households. CBS had a 14.6 rating (12.9 million households) and ABC trailed with a 14.2 (12.5 million).

It was the 35th week in a row that NBC has won the ratings race, which is significant as a measurement of the networks’ ability to generate advertising revenue. Each rating point is said by Nielsen to represent 886,000 households.

While “Dolly” was ABC’s highest-rated program of the week, it was not the best performer among new series. That honor went to “A Different World,” which finished second in the coveted 8:30 p.m. Thursday position behind “The Cosby Show,” from which it was spun off.

Five other rookie series debuted in the Top 20: ABC’s “Full House” (No. 9), ABC’s “Hooperman” (No. 10), ABC’s “I Married Dora” (No. 13), ABC’s “The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story” (No. 18) and NBC’s “My Two Dads” (No. 19).

In the case of “Full House” and “I Married Dora,” however, those numbers were for episodes broadcast on Tuesday, when they were teamed with ABC’s hits “Who’s the Boss?” (No. 6) and “Growing Pains” (No. 7). When “Full House” and “Dora” moved into their regular time periods on Friday, the ratings dropped dramatically: “I Married Dora” ranked 60th and “Full House” ranked 63rd among the week’s 76 prime-time network programs.

Still, ABC research chief Marvin Mord said Tuesday that the network was “obviously pleased with the initial sampling (of its new shows). We think it’s encouraging.”

Although ABC still was third, as it has been for three years running, “we narrowed the gap between ourselves and the leading network (NBC) from the 3.5- to 4-point spread that it had been down to 2 points on households and 1 on demographics,” he said.

Indeed, ABC did far better with its new shows than CBS. CBS’ highest-rated newcomer last week was “Frank’s Place” at No. 42, followed by “Beauty and the Beast” at 44, “The Law and Harry McGraw” at 48, “Jake and the Fatman” at 49, “Wiseguy” at 52, “The Oldest Rookie” at 58 and “Tour of Duty,” the Vietnam War drama slotted opposite “The Cosby Show,” at 56.

ABC’s average was dragged down by the extremely low ratings for “Sledge Hammer!” (64), a repeat of the motion picture “Splash” (65), “Max Headroom” (66), “The Charmings” (67) and newcomer “Once a Hero” (69).

“We’re not ready to replace ‘Once a Hero’ yet but it’s certainly fragile at this point,” Mord said.

Mord found additional reason to be pleased with the controversial new people-meter ratings from Nielsen, which record not only what program is being watched but also, for the first time, what household members are watching it. The figures released Tuesday showed that while ABC was third in the number of households watching, it was second in total viewership, he said.

NBC’s average viewing audience for the week was 24.2 million people, Mord said, compared to 21.7 million for ABC and 20.1 million for CBS.

As for the strong performance by “Dolly” in its first outing Sunday, which attracted 38% of the available audience, Mord attributed it in part to curiosity and said that the network expected the viewership to drop this week--with its share of audience “in the high 20s.”

“But that would still be a significant improvement over last season,” he added. “Even a 26 share would be a pretty solid performance for us in that hour (9 p.m.), where we were doing a 20 share (with movies) last season.”

NBC, meanwhile, got mixed results with its new series. Besides second-ranked “A Different World,” “My Two Dads” was 19th, “J. J. Starbuck” was 34th, “A Year in the Life” 43rd and “Private Eye” 54th.

NBC also suffered a setback in the evening news ratings, with its “NBC Nightly News” finishing third. “CBS Evening News” had a 10.5 rating, ABC’s “World News Tonight” got a 9.6 and “NBC Nightly News” a 9.5.