CBS Wins; Summer Viewing Slides

The Fourth of July holiday week traditionally prompts a plunge in TV viewing levels to their annual nadir, and the latest edition was no exception, with CBS riding reruns of its Sunday and Monday lineups to ratings victory, based on viewing estimates issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

While CBS relied on the likes of “60 Minutes” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” as well as reruns of the movie “A Time to Kill” and “Murder, She Wrote,” some of this summer’s unscripted replacement series also continue to post solid ratings, including NBC’s “Dog Eat Dog” and “Crime & Punishment” and Fox’s twice-weekly talent contest “American Idol,” which topped all programs last week among adults age 18 to 49, the key demographic in the eyes of advertisers.

That said, results have been less promising for a number of other replacement shows, including ABC’s “The Mole II” and Fox’s “Beyond Belief.”

Fox also received a boost from its prime-time broadcast of the “Pepsi 400” NASCAR race, which generated the network’s biggest Saturday night audience since April.

Just more than half of TV sets were in use during prime-time last week, a 5% drop compared with the previous week.

Brian Lowry

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National Nielsen Viewership

Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (July 1-7) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Nielsen estimates there are 269 million potential viewers in the U.S. age 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.

*--* Program Network Viewers 1 60 Minutes CBS 12.51 2 “A Time to Kill’ CBS 11.94 3 Everybody Loves Raymond CBS 11.38 4 Dog Eat Dog NBC 10.74 5 Becker CBS 10.62 6 48 Hours (Mon.) CBS 10.58 7 American Idol (Tue.) FOX 10.28 8 Dateline NBC (Tue.) NBC 10.25 9 Law & Order: Criminal Intent NBC 9.61 10 Crime and Punishment NBC 9.29 11 Law & Order NBC 9.25 12 “Murder She Wrote” CBS 8.73 13 JAG CBS 8.59 14 Auto Racing: Pepsi 400 FOX 8.55 15 Fear Factor NBC 8.54 16 CSI CBS 8.51 17 60 Minutes II CBS 8.43 18 Law & Order: SVU NBC 8.26 19 Crossing Jordan NBC 8.18 20 Dateline NBC (Sun.) NBC 8.06 21 “Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks” NBC 7.91 22 King of Queens CBS 7.75 Yes, Dear CBS 7.75 24 The Guardian CBS 7.74 25 Judging Amy CBS 7.68 26 American Idol (Wed.) FOX 7.53 27 Frasier NBC 7.45 28 Spy TV (8 p.m.) NBC 7.40 Pepsi 400 Post Race (7:30 p.m.) FOX 7.40 30 20/20 (Fri.) ABC 7.31 31 The Simpsons (8:30 p.m.) FOX 7.28 32 Dateline NBC (Fri.) NBC 7.10 33 Looking:/Bachelorettes FOX 7.02 34 “Sling Blade” ABC 6.99 35 Spy TV (8:30 p.m.) NBC 6.90 36 “Mama Flora’s Family” Pt. 2 CBS 6.85 37 Scrubs NBC 6.64 38 The Simpsons FOX 6.58 39 The West Wing NBC 6.29 40 “Dateline NBC July 4th Special” NBC 6.27 41 “Price Is Right 30th Anniversary” CBS 6.25 42 Houston Medical ABC 6.15 43 “Bob Hope ... Outtakes” NBC 6.11 44 That ‘70s Show (8:30 p.m.) FOX 6.02 45 Funniest Home Videos ABC 5.84 46 The District CBS 5.76 47 “Mole II: The Next Betrayal” ABC 5.74 48 Pepsi 400 Pre-Race Show FOX 5.69 49 The Agency (Thu.) CBS 5.67 50 My Wife & Kids ABC 5.55 51 Dateline NBC (Sat.) NBC 5.48 52 48 Hours (Fri.) CBS 5.46 53 State v ABC 5.40 54 The Bernie Mac Show FOX 5.31 55 That ‘70s Show FOX 5.16 56 The Agency (Sat.) CBS 5.10 57 “Blast From the Past” FOX 5.09 58 The Practice ABC 4.91 59 According to Jim ABC 4.87 60 “Octopussy” ABC 4.82 61 Touched by an Angel CBS 4.67 62 “In Search of America” ABC 4.64 63 “Mother” NBC 4.54 64 The Drew Carey Show ABC 4.52 65 Weakest Link (Sun.) NBC 4.46 66 Friends NBC 4.44 67 Grounded for Life FOX 4.39 68 Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Fri., 9:30 p.m.) ABC 4.38 69 Will & Grace NBC 4.37 70 Spin City ABC 4.34 71 King of the Hill FOX 4.33 72 “Beyond Belief” (9 p.m.) FOX 4.21 73 “Buddy” ABC 4.16 Drew Carey (9:30 p.m.) ABC 4.16 75 Grounded for Life FOX 4.06 76 “Beyond Belief” (8 p.m.) FOX 4.04 77 Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Fri., 9 p.m.) ABC 3.97 78 Alias ABC 3.73 79 Futurama FOX 3.50 80 One on One UPN 3.31 81 Boston Public FOX 3.29 82 WWE Smackdown! UPN 3.26 83 Smallville WB 3.22 84 The Parkers UPN 3.18 85 7th Heaven (9 p.m.) WB 3.02 86 7th Heaven (8 p.m.) WB 2.98 87 Girlfriends UPN 2.92 88 The Hughleys UPN 2.82 89 Pepsi 400 Post-Race (7 p.m.) FOX 2.70 90 “Sabrina Down Under” WB 2.62 91 Gilmore Girls WB 2.54 92 Ally McBeal FOX 2.46 93 Reba WB 2.29 94 Buffy the Vampire Slayer UPN 2.22 95 Enterprise UPN 2.15 96 Raising Dad WB 1.91 97 Sabrina, the Teenage Witch WB 1.70 98 Maybe It’s Me WB 1.40 99 Charmed WB 1.38 100 Jamie Kennedy (8:30 p.m.) WB 1.36 “Operation Sandman” UPN 1.36 102 Jamie Kennedy (9 p.m.) WB 1.28 103 Jamie Kennedy (8 p.m.) WB 1.27 104 For Your Love (7:30 p.m.) WB 1.19 105 Angel WB 1.18 106 Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (Wed.) UPN 1.11 107 For Your Love (7 p.m.) WB 1.10 108 Under One Roof UPN 1.05 109 Off Centre WB 92

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Network Averages

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

*--* Network Last week Season to date CBS 8.31 11.67 NBC 7.33 12.70 FOX 5.91 8.63 ABC 5.22 9.08 UPN 2.19 4.06 WB 2.06 3.56

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