TV Ratings : CBS Lands Four Shows in Top 10

Just in time for the CBS affiliates meeting that began in New York Wednesday, the Nielsen ratings came out showing a CBS series as the most popular program in the land last week, with three others in the Top 10. In its final broadcast of the season, “Murphy Brown” was seen in about 14 million homes. The bad news for CBS was that even with the strong showing at the top of the chart, it still finished third overall behind top-rated NBC and runner-up ABC. The full list of ratings is on F11.

* But that wasn’t the worst of the news for the three major networks. The May ratings sweeps ended last week, signaling the onset of summer reruns, and viewing dropped almost instantaneously. Whereas the three networks had combined to attract 60% of the prime-time audience the previous week, they got only 55% last week. That translated to a decline of about 1.4 million homes per network in the weekly averages. NBC’s “L.A. Law,” for example, which the preceding week had ranked No. 1 with its season finale, finished 36th with a repeat last week, its audience plunging from about 15.5 million homes to 9.3 million.

Show Points Share 1. “Murphy Brown” (CBS) 15.0 24 2. “Cheers” (NBC) 14.8 26 3. “Roseanne” (ABC) 14.5 24 4. “Unsolved Mysteries” (NBC) 14.0 27 5. “Designing Women” (CBS) 13.7 22 * “L.A. Law” (NBC) 10.0 19