CBS Wins Weekly Ratings Crown

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Summer reality series ``Survivor'' and ``Big Brother'' helped CBS squeak into the ratings top spot last week, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released Tuesday.

Thursday, August 24th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Summer reality series ``Survivor'' and ``Big Brother'' helped CBS squeak into the ratings top spot last week, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released Tuesday.

``Survivor,'' the week's top-rated show, was seen by 28.7 million viewers. The live Wednesday edition of ``Big Brother'' ranked fifth with 17.0 million viewers.

The top 10 parsed out largely as it has for much of the summer: CBS' reality shows plus ABC's ``Who Wants to be a Millionaire'' (whose Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday editions ranked second through fourth), plus three newsmagazines and two scripted series: ABC's ``The Practice'' and CBS' ``Everybody Loves Raymond.''

Overall in prime time, CBS led the week with an average of 8.98 million viewers (a 6.3 rating and an 11 share), followed close behind by ABC with 8.91 million viewers (6.1 household rating, 11 share).

In third place, NBC had 7.94 million viewers (5.6 rating, 10 share).

Fox had 6.37 million viewers (4.2 rating, 8 share). UPN had 3.57 million viewers (2.2, 4), the WB had 2.35 million viewers (1.6, 3), and Pax TV had 1.38 million viewers (1.1, 2).

In the evening news race, NBC's ``Nightly News'' won with 9.65 million viewers (7.1 household rating, 16 share). ABC's ``World News Tonight'' had 8.20 million viewers (6.1 rating, 14 share), while ``The CBS Evening News'' had 7.56 million viewers (5.8 rating, 13 share).

A rating point represents 1,008,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 100.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Aug. 14-20, the top 10 shows, their networks and household ratings were:

``Survivor,'' CBS, 17.9; tie: ``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'' (Sunday), ABC, and ``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'' (Tuesday), ABC, both 14.5; ``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'' (Thursday), ABC, 13.7; ``Big Brother'' (Wednesday), CBS, 10.8; ''60 Minutes,'' CBS, 9.9; ``The Practice,'' ABC, 9.2; ``Everybody Loves Raymond,'' CBS, 8.6; ``Dateline NBC'' (Monday), NBC, 8.0; ``Dateline NBC'' (Tuesday), NBC, 7.8.

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On the Net: http://www.nielsenmedia.com