NBC Loses Yardage on XFL; ‘Survivor’ Leads CBS

NBC telecasts of the NBA All-Star Game and XFL football both came up short in the ratings stat sheet, allowing CBS to climb atop the prime-time standings behind “Survivor: The Australian Outback,” based on viewing estimates issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

Second-week viewing of the XFL dove a whopping 57% compared with its heavily promoted premiere--a level still on target with NBC’s modest prelaunch projections, though substantial further decline could spell trouble for the start-up league.

While the all-star game and CBS miniseries “Haven” struggled Sunday, ABC enjoyed a big night. “The Practice,” starring Dylan McDermott, posted its second-highest rating ever, with heightened viewing as well for a rock ‘n’ roll edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and the Eddie Murphy movie “Dr. Dolittle.”

Both Friday newsmagazines, “Dateline NBC” and “20/20,” achieved their highest ratings since March, the latter benefiting from “Millionaire’s” shift to 9 p.m. immediately preceding it. At the same time, viewing of NBC’s “Providence” surged with “Millionaire” vacating its 8 p.m. slot.

“Survivor,” meanwhile, continues to bring eyeballs back to the four major networks, with aggregate Thursday-night viewing of those channels rising by more than 11 million viewers since its arrival.

Cable Top 10

Here are Nielsen’s top 10 cable programs in prime time last week, also ranked by total viewers (in millions).

*--*

Net- View- Program work ers 1. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) TNN 7.15 2. “Pretty Woman” TBS 6.77 3. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) TNN 6.36 4. “NBA All-Star Saturday” TNT 4.40 5. Rugrats NICK 4.01 6. Oz HBO 3.70 7. “What Planet Are You From?” HBO 3.64 8. The Sopranos (Sun.) HBO 3.58 9. “Silence of the Lambs” LIFE 3.31 10. Wrestling (Mon., 8 p.m.) TNT 3.30

*--*

Network Averages

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

*--*

Last Season week to date CBS 13.52 million 12.52 ABC 13.23 13.08 NBC 12.63 12.20 FOX 10.68 9.98 UPN 3.64 3.96 WB 2.64 3.96

*--*