TV Ratings : CBS’ ‘60 Minutes’ Celebrates While ABC Gloats

The batteries running the “60 Minutes” watch certainly show no signs of wearing out. The CBS newsmagazine celebrated its 25th anniversary Sunday night with a two-hour broadcast that racked up what the network said were the highest ratings for any program on network television this season. CBS estimated that 55 million people watched at least part of the retrospective.

Those big numbers notwithstanding, it was ABC that had the most to crow about Tuesday with the release of the A.C. Nielsen ratings for last week. The network finished first for the third week in a row and moved closer to overtaking CBS in the season-to-date standings. CBS leads 13.2 to 13.0 for ABC. Five of the top 10 shows were on ABC, and it dominated the other networks on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights.

NBC narrowly trailed CBS for the week, getting a strong showing from the second half of its two-part drama “A Matter of Justice” on Monday night and from the comedy lineup on Thursday, which included “Mad About You” outdrawing Fox’s “The Simpsons” at 8 p.m.

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.

Sta- Rat- Program tion ing 1. 60 Minutes KCBS 23.3 2. “Barbara Walters Special” KABC 22.2 3. Roseanne KABC 20.3 4. The Simpsons KTTV 19.1 5. Home Improvement KABC 17.9 6. Coach KABC 17.5 7. Beverly Hills, 90210 KTTV 17.3 8. Seinfeld KNBC 16.3 9. 20/20 KABC 15.8 10. “A Matter of Justice” KNBC 15.4

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Weekly Averages

ABC: 13.5 CBS: 12.8 NBC: 12.6 FOX: 7.6

Season to Date

CBS: 13.2 ABC: 13.0 NBC: 11.4 FOX: 7.2