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Beefier competition from rival networks did little to hinder another strong night of Olympic coverage on NBC. The 18-49 rating for the night's Winter Olympics grew to a 11.1 from a 10.0 on Saturday night, though it was still down from the record-breaking 15.4 on Friday. NBC won the night with a 9.7 adult 18-49 rating. Fox had a 4.7, ABC a 4.2 and CBS a 2.3, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings. At 7 p.m. NBC easily took 18-49s with a 5.5 for the second half of the NBA All-Star Game, while CBS's "60 Minutes" came in second with a 3.4. ABC and Fox tied for the hour as the first half of the movie "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and Fox's "Futurama" and "King of the Hill" hauled in a 3.2 adult 18-49 rating. Olympic coverage faced its biggest challenge at 8 p.m. as Fox's "Simpsons" and "Malcolm in the Middle" combined for a 6.3 to the Olympics' 10.3 adult 18-49 rating. At 9 p.m. reruns of "The Simpsons" and "Bernie Mac" on Fox tied ABC's "Alias" with a 4.7 among adults 18-49, though that was dwarfed by a 12.3 from the Winter Olympics. At 10 p.m. ABC's "The Practice" mustered a 5.2, less than half of the Olympics' 10.9. CBS struggled to capture an audience after 8 p.m. as a rerun of "The Education of Max Bickford" and the TV movie "Guilty Hearts" never topped a 2.3 adult 18-49 rating. The average household rating and share for Sunday night were: NBC 15.6/24, CBS 7.5/11, ABC 6.0/9 and Fox 5.7/9. Over the weekend, the Winter Olympiad on NBC made history, drawing the largest audience for any winter or summer Olympics to its Friday night opening ceremonies. Considering that the Games opened on an all-time high, the slide in ratings for Saturday's first day of competition was easy to understand. On Saturday night NBC drew a 10.0 adult 18-49 rating, Fox had a 2.9, ABC a 2.2 and CBS a 2.0, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings. The audience for the Olympics grew every half-hour until it topped out at 10 p.m. with an 11.2, then fell back down to a 10.2 adult 18-49 rating the next half-hour. Rival networks ABC, CBS and Fox saw the limited audiences for their weekend offerings slip even further. Two reruns of "Touched by an Angel" on CBS never scored more than 1.9 among adults 18-49, while "The District" didn't do much better at 10 p.m. with a 2.5. ABC's repeat of the James Bond movie "Goldfinger" never pulled in more than a 2.3 adult 18-49 rating. Fox did slightly better with a 2.7 from two "Cops" episodes and a 3.2 from "America's Most Wanted." The average household rating and share for Saturday night were: NBC 17.4/30, CBS and Fox 4.8/8 and ABC 3.9/7. On Friday night, approximately 72 million people tuned into opening ceremony festivities, giving NBC a huge win in adults 18-49 and households. NBC pulled in a 15.4 adult 18-49 for the night. Fox trailed with a 2.3, ABC had a 2.2 and CBS a 2.0, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings. NBC saw its audience expand every half-hour, from a 12.0 rating among adults 18-49 at 8 p.m. to a 17.7 at 10 p.m., before it dropped down to a 17.1 at 10:30 p.m. The other networks largely conceded defeat with racks of reruns. ABC offered "America's Funniest Home Videos" and a repeat of the 1998 comedy "Patch Adams." Fox aired repeats of "That '70s Show" and "Malcolm in the Middle" as well as a new "Dark Angel." CBS presented a rerun of "JAG" and new editions of "First Monday" and "48 Hours." The average household rating and share for Friday night were: NBC 25.7/42, CBS 5.2/8, ABC 3.8/6 and Fox 3.1/5.
BizWeek and USA Today team up
What has more reach than either BusinessWeek or USA Today? How about the two of them combined? Starting in April, the two will partner up for a series of jointly produced features on personal finance and investing. The first fruit of their cooperation will be an editorial section on "Investing for Growth," which will run in the April 2 edition of BusinessWeek and in USA Today's Money section on Wednesday, April 3. Under the loose terms of the partnership, the weekly magazine daily newspaper will team up for several joint editorial efforts this year, sharing marketing and sales resources as well as editorial manpower.
'Felicity' will conclude with commencement
After four years, it's time for both Felicity and "Felicity" to move on. Confirming longstanding suspicions, the WB has announced that the title character's graduation this May will mark the end of the show's four-year run. The remaining 11 episodes will air starting March 20 and conclude with a two-hour finale May 22. Once an anchor for the young network, the college drama has seen its audience diminish to just 3.3 million viewers this year. "Glory Days," from "Scream" writer Kevin Williamson, has not done much better in the time slot while "Felicity" has sat tight on hiatus, drawing just over three million viewers. The absence of co-creator J.J. Abrams, who has been busy with ABC's "Alias," was also cited as a factor in the decision. "Felicity" fans will soon be able to watch their heroine relive her emotional ordeals on the cable network WE: Women's Entertainment, which has purchased the rights to 86 episodes. Repeats of all four seasons will begin to air this October.
A new way to assess the cost of talking heads
Who’s the best-paid star in TV news? Well, if you figure it out on a per-viewer basis, it’s CNN’s Larry King, according to Washington Post columnist Lisa de Moraes. With a new contract worth $7 million per year, King is costing his network roughly $5.39 for every pair of eyeballs that watches his show. King’s new CNN colleague Paula Zahn is a better deal, drawing an average audience of 540,000 while earning $2 million per year for a cost per viewer of $3.70. Katie Couric earns a lot more than Zahn in her new $13 million-a-year deal, but "Today" blows away "American Morning" in the ratings, giving Couric an ultra low cost per viewer of $2.13—even better than Bryant Gumbel’s $2.22. In late night, Conan O’Brien, who just signed a contract renewal with NBC, earns about half as much as CBS’s David Letterman ($8 million vs. $16 million) but also brings in half the audience on average (2.55 vs. 4.35 million). O’Brien’s cost per viewer is $3.14; Letterman’s is $3.68.
PVR opponents go for the kill in court
Are personal video recorders essentially law-breaking devices? That's a question being asked in court right now, and the answer will have serious implications for the future of convergence. A slew of movie and television companies have sued the maker of ReplayTV, one of the two leading PVR brands, alleging that it is designed to allow users to distribute copyrighted content over the internet. That's a relatively straightforward argument, if not necessarily a winning one. But a group of plaintiffs including MGM, Universal Studios and Fox is taking a more radical approach, contending that the most basic function of PVRs--their ability to search TV listings and record shows or films based on their titles, genres or actors--makes it too easy for users to stockpile programming, causing "substantial harm to the market" for DVDs, videos and repeat episodes. Defenders of PVRs say their capabilities are an extension of those offered by VCRs, which the Supreme Court ruled were legal in 1984.
February 11, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
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