CBS’ ‘Rose’ Blooms Amid Gloomy April Numbers

The month of April continues to shower ratings gloom on the major TV networks, with only a few bright spots to be found amid the results for last week that were issued Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

CBS’ “Hallmark Hall of Fame” presentation “Rose Hill,” featuring Jennifer Garner, provided some rosy news, as the western delivered the highest rating for any TV movie broadcast this season, with more than 22 million people tuning in Sunday. “Nightscream,” a thriller starring Candace Cameron Bure, also gave NBC its best Monday movie numbers since January.

ABC’s Dan Aykroyd comedy series, “Soul Man,” got off to a promising start--achieving the rarefeat of building on “Home Improvement’s” audience leading into it--while Fox’s “The X-Files” delivered its biggest rating in 11 weeks.

Overall, however, the picture was bleak. ABC barely improved on its record-low regular-season performance of a week earlier, and even NBC’s Thursday stalwarts “Friends” and “Suddenly Susan”--while still ranking in the Top 10--scored their lowest ratings this season for original episodes.

With “Seinfeld” a repeat and thus feeding fewer viewers into “Fired Up,” the new Sharon Lawrence sitcom also experienced a 17% audience decline for its second telecast.

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Network Averages

Here is the number of viewers that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

Last Week

NBC: 13.22 million

CBS: 12.38

ABC: 11.08

FOX: 9.87

UPN: 3.81

WB: 3.39

Season to Date

NBC: 15.19 million

CBS: 13.74

ABC: 13.51

FOX: 11.74

UPN: 4.49

WB: 3.64

Southland Viewing

Here are Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. The rankings are based on the number of households watching.

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Program Station Households 1.ER KNBC 1,166,416 2.Seinfeld KNBC 963,776 3.60 Minutes KCBS 845,157 4.NYPD Blue KABC 835,272 5.Friends KNBC 825,387 6.The X-Files KTTV 815,503 7.Soul Man KABC 746,308 Fired Up KNBC 746,308 9.Frasier KNBC 736,424 Home Improvement KABC 736,424

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Source: Nielsen Media Research.