Possibly foreshadowing a future battle for news viewers, NBC’s Brian Williams scored a victory over ABC’s Peter Jennings last week.
It was the first time since a timetable was set for Williams to replace Tom Brokaw that the weekly numbers of a Williams-anchored “Nightly News” beat Jennings’ broadcast in the Nielsen Media Research rankings.
NBC announced this spring that Williams would take over for Brokaw after the 2004 presidential elections.
Presumably, Williams would then be competing with Jennings on a regular basis. Jennings has reportedly signed a new contract that would keep him at “World News Tonight” through Brokaw’s departure, although the ABC newsman isn’t confirming the deal.
“Nightly News” averaged 8.8 million viewers (6.4 rating, 14 share) to 8.5 million viewers for “World News Tonight” (6.1, 13). The “CBS Evening News” averaged 7.4 million (5.3, 11).
Those numbers are something of a relief for NBC, where Williams’ poor ratings while sitting in for Brokaw last summer raised some eyebrows.
In prime time, Fox’s “American Idol” continued its march to summer stardom. Its two episodes last week were the two most-watched programs, with 15.3 million tuning in last Tuesday.
NBC undoubtedly sent another thank-you note to producer Dick Wolf. Three of Wolf’s “Law & Order” series — the original, “Special Victims Unit” and “Criminal Intent” — all finished among Nielsen’s top 10.
Still, CBS won the week, averaging 8.4 million viewers (5.8 rating, 10 share) behind “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”
NBC averaged 8 million (5.4, 10), ABC averaged 7.2 million (4.8, 9), Fox averaged 7 million (4.3, 8), UPN had 2.9 million (1.9, 3), the WB had 2.6 million (1.7, 3) and Pax TV had 1.4 million (1.0, 2).
A ratings point represents 1,055,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s 105.5 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.