NEW YORK – Viewers got into dribbling and dancing on ABC again last week.
Offering relief from summer reruns, the last two games of the National Basketball Association finals took the first and third slots on the week’s ratings roster, while ABC’s unexpected summer hit, “Dancing with the Stars,” claimed second place, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Even so, CBS remained the most popular network overall and, other than NBC’s “Law & Order” rerun, CBS series repeats filled out the rest of the Nielsen top 10.
CBS’ special, “AFI: 100 Years, 100 Movie Quotes,” ranked 11th. A “Dateline NBC” special with Katie Couric interviewing “runaway bride” Jennifer Wilbanks ranked 13th. The premiere of NBC’s much-hyped reality series, “I Want to be a Hilton,” was 29th.
For the week, CBS averaged 7.5 million viewers (5.2 household rating, 10 share), while ABC had 7.2 million (4.8 rating, 9 share). NBC had 6.0 million (4.3 rating, 8 share), Fox 4.9 million (3.2 rating, 6 share), UPN 2.7 million (1.8 rating, 3 share), the WB 2.2 million (1.5 rating, 3 share) and Pax TV 520,000 (0.4 rating, 1 share).
NBC’s “Nightly News” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 7.5 million viewers (5.4 household rating, 12 share). ABC’s “World News Tonight” had 7.3 million (5.2 rating, 12 share) and the “CBS Evening News” 6.4 million (4.6 rating, 10 share).
A ratings point represents 1,096,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 109.6 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of June 20-26 the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NBA Finals Game 7: Detroit at San Antonio, ABC, 19.0 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 15.5 million; NBA Finals Game 6: Detroit at San Antonio, ABC, 13.5 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 12.3 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 10.9 million; “CSI: Miami,” CBS, 10.4 million; “Without a Trace,” CBS, 10.3 million; “Everybody Loves Raymond,” CBS, 10.1 million; “Law & Order,” NBC, 9.5 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 9 million.
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