TV Ratings : World Series Viewership Slips Despite Big Week

The World Series dominated prime-time viewing last week, as the series between the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians posted a 13% increase over ratings for the previous baseball championship in 1993.

But figures released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research indicated that baseball moguls could take only moderate satisfaction in that showing. The series still ranked as the fourth lowest-rated ever--and more than 18% lower than in 1991, the last time that two U.S.-based teams played.

Saturday’s climactic game, when Tom Glavine threw a one-hitter to clinch the title for the Braves, was not even the highest rated of the six. Nielsen said that game was watched by about 30.3 million viewers, compared to the 31.7 million who saw Orel Hershiser pitch a gem for the Indians in Game 5.

ABC won the weekly network race but NBC continues to lead for the season. Fox’s annual Halloween episode of “The Simpsons” won its time period Sunday night and was the second most-watched prime-time program of the week locally (because the World Series games aired in the early evening).

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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.

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Program Station Rating 1. The Simpsons (8:30 p.m.) KTTV 20.8 2. The Simpsons KTTV 19.6 3. NYPD Blue KABC 18.6 4. ER KNBC 17.5 5. Friends KNBC 17.0 6. Frasier (Thurs.) KNBC 16.8 Home Improvement KABC 16.8 8. Married . . . With Children KTTV 16.4 9. Coach KABC 16.2 10. NewsRadio (Thurs.) KNBC 15.9

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Weekly Averages

ABC: 14.0

NBC: 13.8

CBS: 8.7

FOX: 7.3

UPN: 3.1

WB: 2.5

Season to Date

NBC: 12.4

ABC: 12.1

CBS:9.4

FOX: 7.3

UPN: 3.3

WB: 2.3

Source: A. C. Nielsen