CBS gets another weekly ratings win

NEW YORK — XFL football fumbled again Saturday night, pulling down NBC's overall ratings as CBS posted another weekly win, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released yesterday.

The XFL audience slipped from its premiere rating of 13.9 million viewers to a new low of 4.5 million last week, its third. It was the lowest-ranked show on any of the four networks, tying for 89th place in households with UPN's "Star Trek Voyager.''

The real action remained on Thursday, as Week Three of the "Survivor II'' vs. "Friends'' tourney continued to draw big crowds. The antics from Australia were seen by 28.2 million viewers, while the veteran NBC sitcom had 21.7 million. Rounding out the hour on NBC was a 20-minute outtake package from past "Friends'' episodes, which attracted 22.5 million viewers.

"Survivor'' placed second for the week, behind NBC's "ER.''

As the lead-out to "Survivor,'' CBS' rookie drama "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' had another great week, ranking fourth with 22 million viewers.

Thanks in part to its Thursday bounty, CBS claimed its fourth straight household ratings win, with ABC the week's runner-up.

CBS averaged 13.0 million viewers (8.8 household rating, 14 share), ABC had 12.6 million viewers (8.4 rating, 14 share) and NBC had 12.1 million viewers (8.3 rating, 14 share).

Fox had 10.2 million viewers (6.5 rating, 10 share), the WB had 3.7 million viewers (2.6 rating, 4 share), UPN had 3.7 million viewers (2.5 rating, 4 share), and Pax TV had 1.4 million viewers (0.9 rating, 1 share).

"NBC Nightly News'' won the evening news ratings race. It had 10.7 million viewers (7.9 household rating, 16 share), ABC's "World News Tonight'' had 9.8 million viewers (7.4 rating, 15 share), and "The CBS Evening News'' had 9.4 million viewers (6.9 rating, 13 share).

A rating point represents 1,022,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 102.2 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Feb. 12-18, the top 10 shows, their networks and ratings: "ER,'' NBC, 18.1; "Survivor II,'' CBS, 16.6; "Friends Outtakes,'' NBC, 14.4; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,'' CBS, 14.1; "Friends,'' NBC, 14.0; "Law & Order,'' NBC, 13.8; "The Practice,'' ABC, 12.9; "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'' (Sunday), ABC, 12.6; "Will & Grace,'' NBC, 12.5; "West Wing,'' NBC, 12.5.

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