The new television season got underway last week with audiences welcoming back old favorites and deserting the reality series, game shows and TV magazines that they had flocked to during the summer. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? not only failed to make the top 10, it failed even to make the top 40 (the Thursday night episode coming in at No. 41 and Sunday’s at No. 52). All of the new reality series, Who Wants to Be a Princess?, Love Cruise, Amazing Race, Lost and The Mole II, finished out of the top 50, with most of them in the bottom 25 (out of 101 primetime shows).
Indicating that viewers have become numbed by the rehashing of Sept. 11 survivor tales and confused about the political response to the attacks, ratings for magazine shows also plummeted. Barbara Walters’ 20/20 on ABC dropped to No. 40; Sunday’s Dateline NBC fell to No. 52 and CBS’s 48 Hours dived to No. 56. NBC won the week with an average 9.1 rating and a 15 share. CBS placed second with an 8.5/14; ABC took the third spot with a 7.7/13, followed by Fox with a 4.6/7.
The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research:
1. Friends, NBC, 19.5/31; 2. E.R. NBC, 18.3/29; 3. Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS, 14.4/20; 4. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 14.2/21; 5. Inside Schwartz, NBC, 14.1/22; 6. Law and Order, NBC, 13.9/22; 7. Will & Grace, NBC, 13.1/20; 8. Frasier, NBC, 13.0/19; 9. JAG, CBS, 12.0/19; 9. Just Shoot Me, NBC, 12.0/18.
