Overall Viewing Takes a Holiday During Christmas

The nights before Christmas found few TV sets stirring, causing tune-in for the major networks to plummet by more than 8 million people compared to season-to-date averages, based on viewing estimates issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

TV viewing was not surprisingly higher during the first half of the week, when “Monday Night Football” delivered its third-highest rating this season. NBC also scored solid numbers with a “National Geographic” special, while ABC received a boost from “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” which helped “20/20 Downtown” draw its biggest audience thus far, albeit opposite an “ER” rerun. CBS ranked first in overall viewing, extending to four weeks a streak that began as soon as ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” left the prime-time playing field. The network was paced by “60 Minutes,” a double dose of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and the Sunday movie “The Marriage Fool.”

Audience levels sank on Christmas Eve--when NBC’s third showing this month of the holiday perennial “It’s a Wonderful Life” still managed to top the competition--and Christmas night, despite an NBA doubleheader featuring the Lakers versus the San Antonio Spurs.

Network Averages

Here is the number of viewers that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

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Last Season week to date CBS 11.21 million 13.03 ABC 10.58 12.31 NBC 10.09 13.25 FOX 7.47 9.04 UPN 3.95 3.86 WB 2.96 4.01

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Southland Viewing

Here are Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. The rankings are based on the number of households watching.

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Sta- House- Program tion holds 1. 60 Minutes KCBS 718,914 2. Ally McBeal KTTV 641,888 3. ER KNBC 621,347 4. Friends KNBC 611,077 5. Frasier KNBC 569,996 6. Jesse KNBC 564,861 7. Frasier KNBC 559,726 8. Spin City KABC 549,456 9. “The Marriage Fool” KCBS 518,645 10. Touched by an Angel KCBS 508,375 Dharma & Greg KABC 508,375

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