Holiday spex ring in CBS ratings victory for week
CBS won its third straight Wednesday thanks to "Frosty the Snowman," got a Friday boost from a Kenny Rogers special and then grabbed its first Saturday win without sports programming since last July 18 with "Disney's Christmas Fantasy on Ice" and a rerun of "Sarah, Plain and Tall."
That Saturday duo helped knock NBC into third for the night, the first time the Peacock has fluttered that low on a Saturday since a baseball playoff game plunged it to third on Oct. 12, 1985.
In general, NBC's problems this season just keep snowballing. Last week the web hit the worst weeklong regular-season rating for any network ever, and matched the lowest regular-season share ever, a mark the Peacock has equaled now three weeks in a row.
The low figures are largely due to NBC's sacrificing of some of its overall strength in household numbers to pursue the profitable adults 18-49 demographic. But now the Peacock has fallen well off the competition's pace by that measure as well.
Last week NBC barely avoided fourth place among adults 18-49, where the averages were ABC, a 7.1 rating, 19 share; CBS, 6.4/17; NBC, 5.7/15; and Fox Broadcasting Co., 5.5/15. ABC has now won that important race in 10 of the season's 13 weeks and has pulled into a tie with CBS in terms of total viewers season to date.
Crafty Fox
In the more targeted adults 18-34 race, Fox equaled leader ABC's average last week and actually won the week when measuring only head-to-head half-hours.
ABC has gotten the jump on the current week's Nielsen results, with the Dallas-Atlanta "Monday Night Football" matchup (17.0/29) dominating Monday's results.
That night CBS plugged in a special "Bob" (13.5/22, down 8% from its 14.6/24 lead-in from "Evening Shade") at 8:30 and came close to matching what the net normally does in the slot with "Hearts Afire."
Though CBS billed the scheduling as a one-time-only stunt to boost "Bob" sampling, there's hope at Paramount that the Bob Newhart vehicle will eventually receive a more extensive tryout in the Monday lineup.
CBS Sunday sweep
CBS' Dec. 21-27 weeklong win was capped by an easy Sunday sweep from "60 Minutes,""Murder, She Wrote" and a 9-11 p.m. "Ed Sullivan" holiday special.
But ABC squeezed ahead among adults 18-49 with "America's Funniest Home Videos" and "Pale Rider."
At Fox, "Batman: The Animated Series" and "Shaky Ground" captured the weblet's best 7-8 p.m. regular-series share since May 31.
At 10:30, "The Ben Stiller Show" is performing comparably to slot predecessor "Woops!"
Saturday's results were dominated by specials. CBS, with "Disney's Christmas Fantasy on Ice" and the rerun of "Sarah, Plain and Tall," forged its best Saturday non-sports rating since last Jan. 4 ("White Fang").
Hope stumbles
NBC suffered its historic Saturday third-place finish with Bob Hope and Washington yule spex. Compared to their '91 airings on a Wednesday, "Hope" plunged in rating a startling 40% and "Christmas in Washington" dropped 29%.
The pair also dragged NBC deep into fourth place for the night among adults 18-49, the net's usual target viewership.
Friday belonged once again to ABC's lineup, though 9-10 p.m. went to CBS' Kenny Rogers Christmas special.
"Rogers" earned the Eye's best rating that hour since the baseball playoffs Oct. 9. Those strong numbers led to the top-rated regular-slot "Picket Fences" since premiere week.
Thursday saw NBC suffer the embarrassment of landing fourth at 8 p.m. (behind ABC's headed-for-hiatus "Delta") with the struggling "Out All Night." But NBC still won the night handily in households and adults 18-49.
NBC gets lift from 'Wings'
The Peacock network got a lift from "Wings," which retained 96% of the "Cheers" lead-in rating, "Wings' " second-best perf ever.
Fox owns the 8-9 p.m. hour with "The Simpsons" and "Martin." Last Thursday "Martin" scored the week's top rating among viewers aged 12-17.
Wednesday went to CBS thanks to the boost of Christmas specials, but ABC still has a lock on the night among adults 18-49.
'Frosty' turns up heat
CBS' "Frosty the Snowman" melted by 5% compared to last year's rating, but "Frosty" still came to life and thumped out CBS' best rating in that slot since the Winter Olympics last February.
Tuesday fell as usual to ABC, though CBS won the 8-9 and 10-11 p.m. hours with "Rescue 911" (its top rating since last Jan. 7) and the second half of "Through the Eyes of a Killer," respectively.
ABC's "The Jackie Thomas Show" slipped another notch, losing 17% of its "Roseanne" lead-in rating.
That's weaker than what "Coach" been managing in the slot this season, but still solid for a newcomer.
Bigger ABC Tuesday concerns right now are "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper," which fell into a slot tie with "Rescue 911" in adults 18-49 last week, and "Going to Extremes," which suffers a significant audience exodus in the 10:30-11 p.m. half-hour.
The Dec. 14 race was won by CBS' regular Monday lineup (Daily Variety, Dec. 16).
Each rating point represents an estimated 931,000 households, or 1% of the country's TV homes.
The share is the same sort of percentage, except that it's measured against only the households watching TV during the timeslot involved.
