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Football wins big; Couric runs the ball for CBS

By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press
Published September 15, 2006

Katie Couric led the CBS Evening News to its first weekly ratings win in more than five years, but her honeymoon may be short - she slipped to third place on Monday.

Couric's first evening-news broadcast last Tuesday brought in nearly 13.6-million curious viewers. The numbers went down, as expected, through the rest of the week, but she stayed in first place each day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

On Monday, the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an estimated 8.3-million people tuned in to NBC's Nightly News. ABC's World News had 7.9-million and Couric's broadcast had 7.5-million.

That's the same pecking order that was in place before Couric started and, with a handful of exceptions, for the past several years.

"As we've said publicly and repeatedly from day one, our focus is on the long-term developments, not the short term," said CBS News President Sean McManus. "However, given that it was a somewhat atypical night of viewing, to be in this close competition for first place shows just how far we have come in just one week."

Last week, the CBS Evening News averaged 10.2-million viewers, NBC's Nightly News had 7.1-million and ABC's World News had 6.9-million. CBS last won a week in June 2001.

Football dominated prime time, with games and pregame shows accounting for seven of Nielsen's 10 most-popular shows last week. The premiere of NBC's Sunday-night NFL game, with the Manning matchup, led the way with 22.6-million viewers.

Fox had some bragging rights, too: Its Sunday-night football highlights show, The O.T., beat the first edition of NBC's competing highlights show.

NBC and Fox, which has already premiered several of its fall shows, broke CBS's stranglehold on the ratings top spot. NBC averaged 9.7-million viewers for the week. Fox averaged 9.3-million , but won among the 18- to 49-year-old viewers that advertisers seek. ABC had 7.5-million, CBS had 7.1-million, the WB had 1.7-million, UPN had 890,000 and the i network had 680,000.

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision had 3.6-million viewers, Telemundo had 850,000 and TeleFutura had 490,000.

1. Indianapolis vs. N.Y. Giants, NBC, 22.5

2. House, Fox, 19.6

3. Miami vs. Pittsburgh, NBC, 19.2

4. Sunday Pre-Kick, NBC, 14.5

5. Thursday Pre-Kick, NBC, 14.0

6. Standoff, Fox, 13.6

7. Ohio St. at Texas, ABC, 13.2

8. The O.T., Fox, 12.1

9. Football Night, NBC, 11.6

10. The Simpsons, Fox, 11.6

11. CSI, CBS, 10.6

12. Without a Trace, CBS, 10.5

13. Two & Half Men, CBS, 10.3

14. Family Guy, Fox, 9.9

15. CSI: Miami, CBS, 9.7

16. 60 Minutes, CBS, 9.5

17. CSI: NY, CBS, 9.4

18. Prison Break, Fox, 9.2

19. Law & Order, NBC, 9.2

20. Bones, Fox, 9.1

[Last modified September 14, 2006, 09:58:56]