NBA Finals Lead NBC to Bullish Victory

Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman and the rest of the Chicago Bulls sent NBC soaring to a big victory in the prime-time ratings last week, Nielsen Media Research reported Tuesday.

The first three installments of the NBA Finals, which Chicago won, were among the week’s four most-watched programs, with only a repeat of “Seinfeld� preventing a sweep. The Seattle SuperSonics should be so lucky.

NBC said that ratings for all three basketball games were up markedly from last year, particularly among the advertiser-preferred demographic of 18- to 49-year-olds.

By contrast, Fox’s coverage of Games 1 and 3 of hockey’s Stanley Cup Finals attracted only 7% of the available audience and ranked 80th and 82nd, respectively, among the week’s 99 prime-time network programs. Still, Fox said the average rating for the two telecasts was 6% larger than last year.

Fox fared only slightly better with two entertainment series that premiered last week. The drama “L.A. Firefighters� ranked 62nd with a 9% share of audience, while the comedy “Last Frontier� was 78th with 7%.

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Southland Ratings

Here are A.C. Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. Each rating point equals 50,064 households.

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Program Network Rating 1. Seinfeld KNBC 17.2 2. Friends KNBC 16.2 3. Home Improvement KABC 15.4 4. ER KNBC 14.3 5. Dateline NBC (Tues.) KNBC 13.6 -- 20/20 KABC 13.6 7. “World Music Awards� KABC 13.5 8. Fred Roggin’s Postgame Show KNBC 13.4 9. The Single Guy KNBC 13.1 10. 60 Minutes KCBS 12.7

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Weekly Averages

NBC: 11.3

ABC: 8.2

CBS: 7.3

FOX: 4.3

UPN: 2.4

WB: 2.0

Season to Date

NBC: 11.5

ABC: 10.4

CBS: 9.5

FOX: 7.1

UPN: 3.0

WB: 2.4

Source: A.C. Nielsen