By Dave Lindorff

    ABC may attract the most viewers, but NBC attracts the most viewers with the most money.
 That's the word from Rob Frydlewicz at Foote Cone & Belding.  Frydlewicz, who heads FCB's research operation, examined the ratings data for $75,000+ homes on regular season shows during the last sweeps. 
     His findings: NBC scored an 11.3 primetime rating among that elite group.  That compares to a 9.3 overall household rating for the Peacock network.
     NBC was closely followed by ABC, which had an 11.2 rating among wealthy households--about 8 percent better than its top-ranked overall household rating of 9.7.
     The rest of the broadcast pack were way behind in this tony category, with CBS  turning in a 7.8 rating and Fox a 7.5 rating.  
   CBS's showing was 16 percent lower than its overall household rating of 9.3, but Fox, interestingly, did 12 percent better among wealthy viewers than it did among general households.  Its overall household rating for the period was just 6.7.
     Less popular still among comfortable couch potatoes were the WB, with a 2.6 rating, and UPN, with a dismal 1.6.
     On average, the six networks had a 6.1 rating among wealthier viewers, compared to a 5.9 overall household rating.
     Frydlewicz attributes NBC's success among the well-to-do to its remarkable performance on Thursday evenings.  
     Of the top 10 primetime programs in terms of affluent viewers, five are on NBC's Thursday lineup:  "Friends," "Frasier," "E.R.," "Stark-Raving Mad" and "Jesse."  Three others of the top 10--"The West Wing," "Will and Grace" and "Law and Order"--are on NBC's other days.
    Fox has the top scorer in the category, "Ally McBeal," with a modest 10.5 household rating but a 17.5 rating among $75,000+ households, and ABC has "The Practice," leaving CBS, WB and UPN nowhere on the list.
    Frydlewicz notes that while Fox's "Ally," the season's 15th ranked show, had the highest concentration of upscale homes, NBC's "E.R.," thanks to its higher overall rating, had the highest rating among them. 
     "A higher concentration of affluent viewers like you see for 'Ally'  can be an advantage for an advertiser seeking that demo," observes Frydlewicz, "since you're paying for less waste."
     TV networks won't guarantee delivery of an income demographic, only an age break, so advertisers seeking an upscale audience have to buy an age demo, in hopes of getting a certain percentage of wealthier viewers.
    The WB's performance among upscale viewers dropped dramatically between 1998 and 1999. 
    In 1998, the little network had a 12 percent higher rating among upscale viewers than it had among overall households, but this year its upscale viewership rating of 2.6 was 13 percent lower than its 3.0 general household rating.  
    Frydlewicz suggests this is because the WB added Friday programming this season that was not targeting upscale viewers.
     So is NBC deliberately aiming for a wealthy crowd on Thursday nights? 
   "I think the networks are always trying to attract affluent viewers because that's a group that a lot of advertisers want to reach," says Frydlewicz.
     "Of course, they try to reach a general audience too.  I think NBC was probably just lucky this time.  They got mass and class." 
     And what does it all mean?
     "A lot of people seem to assume that television is a downscale medium," says Frydlewicz, "but this information shows that on certain shows in certain time periods, you can still reach large numbers of upscale viewers using the broadcast networks."

-Dave Lindorff covers television and research for Media Life.