New Sitcoms Tip-Off While Basketball Drops Off

A trio of new sitcoms began with promising ratings last week, while the shooting percentage for CBS’ NCAA basketball coverage dropped a bit, based on results issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

The future might be bright for Fox’s “Futurama,� the new show from “The Simpsons� creator Matt Groening, which outperformed both its animated predecessor and “The X-Files� on Sunday night. There’s room for caution, however, since Fox’s “The PJs� opened with similar numbers only to see its audience drop sharply when the series moved to Tuesdays, which is where “Futurama� is headed--as part of an all-’toon night--after this Sunday’s telecast.

ABC also posted encouraging numbers last Wednesday with its premieres of “The Norm Show� and “It’s like, you know . . .,� while CBS’ John Larroquette comedy “Payne� looked pretty achy following a weak outing opposite the latter. CBS’ NCAA “Final Four� coverage fell 13% compared to tune-in a year ago but still more than doubled the number of men that watch CBS on an average Saturday.

While clearly too early to sound alarms or alert paramedics, NBC’s “ER� slipped to its lowest rating for an original episode since 1994, the show’s first season.

Cable Top 10

Here are Nielsen’s top 10 cable programs in prime time last week, also ranked by total viewers (in millions).

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Program Network Viewers 1. Wrestling (Mon., 9 p.m.) USA 7.41 2. Wrestling (Mon., 10 p.m.) USA 7.19 3. Wrestling (Sun., 7 p.m.) USA 5.57 4. Rugrats NICK 5.52 5. Wrestling (Mon., 8 p.m.) TNT 5.29 6. NCAA Women’s Basketball ESPN 5.13 7. Rugrats (Wed.) NICK 4.44 8. All That NICK 4.23 9. The Sopranos HBO 4.19 10. “Great Expectations� HBO 3.96

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Network Averages

Here is the number of viewers that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

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Last week Season to date NBC 12.53 million 12.76 CBS 12.48 13.18 ABC 10.03 12.22 FOX 9.86 11.05 WB 4.07 4.61 UPN 2.62 2.77

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Southland Viewing

Here are Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. The rankings are based on the number of households watching.

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Program Station Households 1. Frasier KNBC 1,016,750 2. ER KNBC 898,643 3. Friends KNBC 867,832 4. Futurama KTTV 852,427 5. 60 Minutes KCBS 847,292 6. Jesse KNBC 718,914 Veronica’s Closet KNBC 718,914 8. The X-Files KTTV 703,509 9. Ally McBeal KTTV 667.563 10. The Simpsons KTTV 662,428

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