Ritter’s last episodes seen

The season premiere of ABC’s “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter,” the first of three episodes John Ritter filmed before his death Sept. 11, handily beat its competition Tuesday night, according to Nielsen ratings released Wednesday.

More than 16.9 million people watched the 8 p.m. episode, which was introduced by co-star Katey Sagal in a tribute to Ritter. ABC will air the actor’s final episodes in the next two weeks, then will show reruns for several weeks. New episodes then will return incorporating the death of Ritter’s character.

CBS’ premiere of “Navy NCIS” attracted more than 11.8 million viewers at 8 p.m., and increased to 13 million viewers in its second half, barely losing out to the debut of ABC’s “I’m With Her”at 8:30 p.m.

Against that competition, NBC continued to suffer bad news with its 8-9 p.m. comedy lineup of “Whoopi” and “Happy Family,” which have dropped 41% and 37%, respectively, in total viewership from their premieres three weeks ago.

“Frasier,” opening its final season on NBC at 9 p.m., attracted 13.4 million viewers against the season premiere of ABC’s comedy “According to Jim,” which scored 12.1 million viewers.

-- Greg Braxton