Orange Bowl grabs slightly better rating than 2000 title game

NEW YORK (AP) _ The low-scoring Orange Bowl produced high TV ratings, with more than 27 million people tuning in. <br><br>It gave ABC its largest Wednesday prime-time audience since Barbara Walters'

Friday, January 5th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ The low-scoring Orange Bowl produced high TV ratings, with more than 27 million people tuning in.

It gave ABC its largest Wednesday prime-time audience since Barbara Walters' interview with Monica Lewinsky aired on March 3, 1999.

No. 1 Oklahoma's 13-2 victory over Florida State to claim the national championship Wednesday night drew a 17.8 national rating and 28 share for ABC Sports.

No bowl game has had as high a rating since the Jan. 2, 1997, Sugar Bowl _ when Florida beat Florida State 52-20 to win the national title _ had a 17.9 on ABC.

Wednesday's rating is an increase of 2 percent over last year's Bowl Championship Series title game, the Sugar Bowl, in which Florida State beat Virginia Tech 46-29 on Jan. 4.

It's also 3 percent higher than the 1999 BCS championship.

The game peaked from 9:30-10 p.m. EST with a 19.2 rating and 29 share. Viewership was still high for the end of the broadcast, with an 18.5/35.

Each rating point represents a little more than 1 million television households. Share is the percentage of in-use TVs tuned to a given program.

The top-50 market with the highest viewership levels was Oklahoma City, which registered a 63.1 rating and 80 share.