CBS wins all slots on competitive Thursday
      CBS done something on Thursday that it hasn't been able to do all season- win every timeslot. While it has won numerous times in total viewers, the sore point was always the 10pm slot- belonging to "The Agency." But that show started to pick up some slack, bringing in 10.6mil for a repeat effort. That barely beat out the competition, "ER" (10.4mil) and "PrimeTime Thursday"- but nevertheless, it did.
      "CSI" (18.8mil) took an easy victory at 9pm for a repeat. Number two was "Will & Grace" (11.0mil), which got drug down by a weak "Just Shoot Me" (9.6mil). "Millionaire" slipped to its lowest non-repeat Thursday marks of the season (10.2mil), while Fox zoned out witht he movie "Nine Months" (4.8mil). "WWF Smackdown" (6.2mil) was very strong in the hour, winning many young demos. At 8pm, "Survivor" (18.0mil) had no problems, despite a valient effort by "Friends" (15.4mil) getting ruined by "Inside Schwartz" (10.4mil). ABC's "Whose Line?" (5.3mil at 8pm, 6.0mil at 8:30) was way back, while the WB barely registered with "Popstars" (2.4mil) and "Maybe It's Me" (2.1mil).
       Compared to last season, nearly every network was down, but some cut their losses. Fox dropped 48%, ABC was down 27% (one of it's smallest Thursday losses of the season), the WB was off 19%, NBC 16%, while the UPN cut its losses to just 2%, its best performance of the season by far. CBS was the only network up, cruising 60% higher than last season. In total, the nets brought in 49.2mil viewers, down 4%. (December 28)

Wednesday finally picks up
      After two days of no series breaking the 10 million viewer mark, Wednesday night finally picked up in the ratings, with NBC & CBS fighting it out for top spot. NBC took it 11.1mil to 10.6mil, but the eye did win the 8pm timeslot. "60 Minutes II" (11.0mil) took it over "Ed" (7.5mil), which also lost out to "My Wife & Kids" (9.0mil) and "According To Jim" (7.7mil). Fox was fourth in the hour with "That 70s Show" (7.2mil) and "Grounded For Life" (6.7mil), followed by "Enterprise" (3.4mil) and the WB movie "Look Whos Talking Too" (3.2mil).
     At 9pm, "The West Wing" (11.8mil) took it over CBS's "The Kennedy Centre Honours" (10.3mil), and that's just about all there was in the 9pm hour. "The Drew Carey Show" (7.5mil) was way back in third, drug down at 9:30 by "Whose Line?" (6.0mil). "Bernie Mack" (7.0pm) was weak, also drug down at 9:30 by "Grounded" (5.6mil). The UPN special "Iron Chef" (2.7mil) was sixth.
     In the late hour, "Law & Order" (14.0mil) had no problems overcoming CBS and "20/20" (7.5mil). (December 27)

ABC very strong on Friday, NBC wins
     ABC put up its best Friday perfomance of the season thanks to a bevy of specials, giving the net hope for a brighter tomorrow. "Americas Funnest" started out at 8pm, drawing 10.0mil, beating out NBC's "Stars On Ice" (7.3mil) and CBS's Mariah Carye special (6.7mil). The special "Classic Bloopers" actually increased at 9pm, to 10.1mil, putting the boots to "Dateline" (8.9mil) and "That's Life" (7.0mil). At 10pm, ABC finally fell, with "SVU" drawing a very strong 12.9mil for a repeat effort. CBS was second with "48 Hours" (7.3mil), while ABC watched it's "Challenge America With Erin Brockovich" special drop to 6.7mil.
    And Fox? The net bascially dried up and blew away. "Family Guy" (4.0mil) and "The Tick" (4.4mil) did marginally worse than they're doinng on Thursdays, while "24" sank to just 3.5mil. Compared to last season, it was a bloodbath. Fox plummeted 68% from last year's "Home Alone" showing, CBS sank 36% from last season's regular line-up, including "CSI," NBC was up a slight 5%, while ABC jumped 39%. All together, the nets slid by 24% in the ratings, losing 9.4mil viewers, to 29.7mil. (December 22)

Fox, ABC & NBC fiddle with series
      Fox, ABC & NBC all announced changes to their schedules within the last few days, some that were a long time coming. First off, NBC officially cancelled "Inside Schwartz" and "Emeril." The latter is off the sched for good, while the former will air new episodes over the next two Thursdays before it makes it's exit. Also unlikely to be picked up is "UC: Undercover," although NBC won't comfirm nor deny it.
     ABC is brining back "The Job" to try and shore up it's sinking sitcom slate. The series will air Wednesday at 9:30pm, followed by the return of "20/20 Downtown." Does ABC even realize that this show failed to break 10mil viewers last spring ata  time when "Drew Carey" was drawing 13mil? "20/20" moves to Fridays at 10pm, while "Once & Again" gets bumped up an hour to 9pm.
     Over on Fox, early confidence in it's young series is quickly evaporating. "Undeclared," "Titus" and "Grounded For Life" have all had their season orders cut from 22 episodes a piece to 17, 20 & 20 respectively. While "Grounded For Life" is actually building on its lead-in on Wednesdays, "Titus" frequently drops a quarter of the audience from "The Bernie Mack Show," which "Undeclared" ranks 4th in its slot on Tuesday nights. (December 21)

The eye blows out Thursday, Fox drowns
     With NBC in repeats, CBS took Thursday night by storm, raking up an average of 18.2mil viewers, beating out number tow NBC, which averaged 12.2mil. "Survivor" (19.7mil) started out the night with its best results in over a month, leading into an average 
"CSI" (23.5mil), which in turn lead into a slow episode of "The Agency" (11.4.mil). Disappointing for CBS was the fact that "The Agency" drew only it's season average, despite "ER" (12.7mil) being in repeats. "PrimeTime Thursday" (11.2mil) was third in the slot.
      At the other end of the spectrum was Fox, which managed only 4.8mil. "The Family Guy" started out the night with a pathetic 4.7mil, "The Tick" slipped to a measly 3.7mil (which, by the way, rates lower on the week than 4 series on the WB and another 4 on the UPN- more than half of which were in repeats). "Temptation Island" increased to a pathetic 5.7mil at 9pm.
     Left in the middle were the rest. "Friends" (15.4mil) was top rated for NBC, but a new "Inside Schwartz" slipped to 10.5mil at 8:30, "Will & Grace" managed only 11.4mil at 9pm, and "Just Shoot Me" slipped again to 10.2mil at 9:30pm. ABC nearly hit hit seocnd place at 9pm with "Millionaire" (10.7mil), but was slow early on with "Whose Line?" (6.5mil at 8pm, 7.8mil at 8:30pm).
    Compared to last season, CBS was the only network to show a agin, once. Fox dropped an astounding 55%, ABC was down 30%, Fox 29%, the UPN 10% (it's smallest Thursday loss of the season) and NBC 5%. CBS jumped 160%, or 11.2mil viewers. But, unike pervious weeks, it wasn't enough. The nets shed 1.6mil viewers from last season, to 53.9mil. (December 21)

CBS almost wins slow Wednesday
     CBS came up with 11.0 million viewers on Wednesday, almost winning the net were it not for NBC (12.0mil). The net scored 11.0mil for both "60 Minutes II" and the movie "Sons of Mistletoe," winning the 8pm slot and coming close at 9pm. NBC got good results from "Law & Order" (15.4mil) at 10pm, but results from "The West Wing" (13.1mil) and especially "Ed" (7.4mil) left much to be desired.
      Falling behind was ABC once again, peaking with "My Wife & Kids" (10.6mil), in repeats, and bottoming out with "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" (8.7mil) at 9:30pm. "According to Jim" (9.3mil) repeated to solid numbers, while a new episode of "The Drew Carey Show" (10.1mil) tied "The Bernie Mack Show" (10.1mil) for third in the slot. "20/20" (9.0) was dead last at 10pm.
     On the little nets, "Felicity" (4.0mil) bowed out to its highest numbers of the season, helped by a strong "Dawsons Creek" (4.5mil), while a repeat "Enterprise" (3.5mil) fell behind a repeat "Voyager" from last season for the first time this year.
     Compared to last season, it was good and bad, depending on how you look at it. ABC was off 31%, NBC was down 26% (but only because it aired all new episodes last season) and the UPN was off a tiny 3%. The WB was flat, Fox was up 22% while CBS jumped 38%. In total, thenets lost 9% of their viewers, down to 47.3mil. (December 20)

Tuesday sitcoms get the shaft
     Something is definitely wrong with sitcoms on Tuesday nights, only one of the 8 airing managed to break the 10 million viewer mark. That was "Frasier," but just barely with 10.1mil. Next down the line was an original episode of "That 70s Show" with 9.5mil, then you have to go down the line to 8.0mil to find repeats of "Dharma & Greg" and "Scrubs." The flailing undeclared actually broke 7mil with 7.4mil, while a repeat "Spin City" flamed out with 7.0mil. Back-to-back new "Three Sisters" lead-out the list with 6.6 and 6.9mil. at 8pm.
     What were viewers watching instead? Certainly not specials- NBC's 10pm "25 Most Interesting People of 2001" was dead last in its slot with only 7.5mil. They were watching dramas, even in repeat. CBS led the way with a repeat "JAG" (14.8) being the most watched show of the night. "Judging Amy" (14.4mil) was close but not quite at 10pm, "NYPD Blue" (14.0mil) put in a strong effort at 9pm, and "The Guardian" (12.8mil) was right on it's heels. On the mini nets, "Gilmore" (4.4mil) and "Smallville" (4.6mil) both repeated very well, while "Buffy" (2.9mil) was ony target with what it usually does. The only dramas viewers weren't watching were "Roswell" (2.7mil) and "24" (7.8mil), both new episodes, both dead last in their slots in their respective classes.
     Compared to last season, nearly every network was down. ABC slid 28%, Fox 16% (a new "24" was down 9% from a repeat "Dark Angel" last season), the WB was down 11% (though last year, the network aired all new episodes of "Buffy" and "Angel."), while NBC was down 7%. The UPN was flat, while CBS was up 1%. This years repeat "JAG" was up 36% over last year's repeat. In total, the nets shed 13% of their viewership, down to 47.9mil. (December 19)

ABC wins Mon, but CBS is big
     ABC won Monday with an average of 17.8mil viewers, ont he back of football (19.6mil) and a strong "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" (14.2mil), but the real story was the strength of CBS. Two series set record ratings, with the net averaging 15.7mil viewers on the night. "King of Queens" led-off with a best yet 16.7mil, up from a record set 3 weeks ago, leadin in-to "The Ellen Show," which drew 13.3mil. It's 80% retention rate is still off from what "Yes, Dear" usually holds (and sometimes builds), but it was up almost 3 million viewers from last week, something that surely bodes well. "Raymond" was back at it's usual 22.0mil at 9pm, while "Yes, Dear" set a record with 18.6mil at 9:30pm. "Family Law" sunk to 12.8mil at 10pm.
    Other than the alphabet and the ey, it was a pretty bleak night all around. Fox sunk witht he special "Santa Baby" (5.0mil), and things didn't get any better with a repeat "Ally" at 9pm (6.1mil). The WB had some strength in repeats from "7th Heaven" (6.0mil) and "Angel" (3.0mil), while NBC didn't do much with only the second repeat showing of "Titanic" (10.1mil). Maybe it's its very weak lead-in ("The Weakest Link"- 8.1mil) had something to do with that.
    Compared to last season, the win/loss column was split. The WB was down 30% (as it aired all new programming last season), Fox slipped a quarter, while ABC was off 5%. On The win side, CBS rose 13%, NBC 14%, while the UPN increased 22%. But it wasn't enough- the nets were still donw 1.6% from last season. (December 18)

"Once & Again" claws back up
     "Once & Again" started to claw its way back up the ratings chart on Friday, registering 7.3mil. While that is by no means great, it is the series best results of the season. Some of it might have to do with stronger lead-ins. "Americas Funniest Home Videos" drew 8.1mil at 8pm, and a "Before They Were Stars" special increased to 8.3mil at 9pm, significantly above what their predecesors drew.
     But even so, NBC still won the night and every slot by a hufe margin, starting with "Providence" (11.6mil) at 8pm. "Dateline NBC" (10.1mil) fell off a bit, but "Law & Order" (16.0mil) jumoed back with it's best results since October. Crushed were CBS's movie "The Christmas Secret" (7.3mil) and "48 Hours" (6.7mil), as well as Fox's ailing line-up of "Dark Angel" (5.0mil) and "24" (4.2mil).
     Compared to last season, the results are downright ugly. Fox was off 44%, CBS 38%, NBC 7%, while ABC was up a strong 16%. In total, the nets shed about 8 million viewers from last season, or about 19%. (December 16)

ER tops CSI, but numbers promising
     "ER," featuring the departure of Eriq LaSalle, easily topped "CSI" on Thursday in their first original episode head-to-head match up, but the results were promising for CBS. "ER" drew 28.8mil, actually down from last season, while "CSI" drew 17.8mil, up 356% from what CBS aied in the slot this Thursday last season. More promising still- this was a special "ER," and "CSI" still did okay. It increased over "The Agency"s usual mark by about 6 million viewers, building signifcantly on its lead-in.
     And spealing of it's lead-in, "The Amazing Race" drew a series high 13.0mil Thursday at 9pm for it's final, holding a strong portion of its "Survivor" (17.5mil) lead-in. But it had to settle for second in the slot as "Will & Grace" (19.6mil) and "Just Shoot Me" (17.8mil)t ook advantage of its lesser competition to zoom to their highest marks since premiere week. "Millionaire" (11.2mil) was a close third in the hour, leading out to a death with "PrimeTime Thursday," which sunk to 7.8mil thanks to heightened competition.
    At 8pm, "Friends" (23.7mil) and a repeat of "Will & Grace" (18.0mil) won, pretty much killing the non-CBS competition. ABC's "Whose Line?" slipped to 6.0mil at 8pm, rising to 8.0mil at 8:30pm. Fox blanked out with "The Family Guy" (4.8mil) and "The Tick" (4.0mil).
    Year over year, there was actually 7% growth, even though only two networks posted gains. ABC was the biggest loser, down 35%, followed by the WB at 29%, the UPN at 9% and NBC at 2%. And the winners, signifying the crudiness of their line-ups from last season, Fox was up 30%, while CBS increased an astounding 173%, up over 10mil viewers from last season. (December 15)

Slow Wednesday hits everybody
    December is turning out to be one slow month, and Wednesday's results were no exception. The night could boast only 2 series above the 15 million viewer mark, "Law & Order" (20.2mil) and "The West Wing" (18.6mil). ABC won the 8pm hour with "My Wife & Kids" (12.0mil) and "According To Jim" (10.6mil), also winning in most demos. CBS was a close second with "60 Minutes II" (11.0mil), while NBC continued to flunder with "Ed" (10.6mil). Fox's combo of "King of The Hill" (6.5mil) and "Grounded For Life" (6.8mil) were a distant fourth, and a repeat "Enterprise" (4.3mil) still beat out a new "Dawsons Creek" (4.0mil) for fifth. Interestingly enough, was "Enterprise" drew in repeats is what "Voyager" drew last seaosn with new episodes.
    NBC won the 9pm hour as usual, btu a surprising 2nd was CBS. Thanks to repeats of "Raymond" (11.3mil) and "Becker" (10.5mil), the net overcame a strong "Bernie Mack" (10.1mil) on Fox. Sinking to fourth was ABC and the faltering "Drew Carey Show" (8.8mil). Things didn't get any better for ABC at 10pm, where "20/20" sunk to 8.6mil, beating only "48 Hours" (8.1mil). (December 14)

WB heats up on Tuesday
    The WB heated up on Tuesday night after a month of average results, averaging 6.4mil viewers, up an amazing 82% over last season. "Gilmore Girls" started the 8pm hour with 5.8mil viewers, beating a repeat "Buffy" (3.0mil), and the return of "Emeril" (5.5mil) on NBC. It came close to beating NBC all together, were it not for "Three Sisters" (6.7mil) throwing a wrench in that plan. Fox's "Undeclared" (7.0mil) didn't pose much of a threat, even if "That 70s Show" (9.5mil) almost doubled "Gilmore"s audience at 8pm. CBS won the hour with 16.6mil for "JAG," while ABC was second with "Dharma & Greg" (9.8mil) and "Spin City" (9.1mil)
    At 9pm, "Smallville" (7.0mil) beat out "Roswell" (2.0mil), and came very close to "24" (8.1mil) on Fox. "Frasier" (15.2mil) was the highest rated show in the hour, but got drug down by "Scrubs" (11.8mil) at 9:30. "NYPD Blue" (13.6mil) won the hour in viewers, with "The Guardian" (12.0) coming in third. In the late hour, "Judging Amy" (14.5mil) slid off a bit, while "Philly" (11.0mil) and "Dateline NBC" (10.0mil) brought up the rear.
    Compared to last season, Fox was donw 23%, ABC 18%, the UPN 11% and NBC 6%. CBS did increase 13%, while the WB jumped 83%. All that equaled a loss of about 1 million viewers from last season, down to 52.8mil. (December 12)

"Ellen" eats a whole on Monday
    While the results were promising for the series, they weren't for the night. "The Ellen Show" drew 10.6mil on it's first Monday try, about double what's it's been drawing on Fridays this season. But that was bad new for the rest of CBS's Monday series as almost all of them fell to season lows. "Everybody Loves Raymond" (19.3mil) was 3 million off it's season average, while "Becker" (16.4mil) and "King of Queens" (12.9mil) each shed 2 million. The only series up was "Family Law" (11.5mil), though for that series anything above 11mil is something to do cartwheels over.
    The rest of the night was a jumble, with most nets coming up with disappointing results. Fox's "Boston Public" (10.9mil) seems to be drugs down by "Ally McBeal" (9.3mil), while over on NBC, "The Weakest Link" (8.1mil) got whipped once again by "Millionaire" (12.0mil), actually falling to 5th in the slot behind thw WB's "7th Heaven" (8.2mil). "Third Watch" (10.0mil) was third at 9pm with underwealming results, while ABC's football (14.6mil) continued a disappointing season.
    Compared to last season, things were pretty bloody. Fox led the losers, off 23%. CBS was down 20%, and ABC 11%. the UPN was down only 10%, despite the fact that it aired all repeats this season, compared to all new eps last season. NBC was up 16%, while the WB jumped 22%. In total, the nets shed about 9% of their audience from last season, 5.6mil viewers. (December 11)

What happened to "X-Files?"
    This is the question Fox must be asking itself, only 4 weeks after "The X-Files" debuted it's new season. The show dropped to just 8.0mil last night, dragging down Fox's entire line-up with it. Starting out with "Futurama (7.8mil), it didn't get much better with "King of The Hill" (8.1mil), while "The Simpsons" (12.1mil) and "Malcolm In The Middle" (12.0mil) signaled the high point, leading down to "Files." Will Fox replace this 9 year old series? It seems highly likely. It's airing "Malcolm" post-Superbowl in February, and surely it won't waste that show's momentum on "The X-Files." How about "24" or "Dark Angel?"
    But it wasn't like anybody else was gangbusters on Sunday. "60 Minutes" (16.4mil) started out strong for CBS, but "Max Bickford" (11.3mil) slipped from that, and the movie "The Seventh Stream" (10.4mil) just couldn't recover. ABC started out strong too with the movie "Santa Who?" (10.5mil), but "Alias" (9.5mil) dropped to its worst numbers yet, leaving "The Practice" (15.3mil) down 5 million viewers over last season. NBC was dead from the start with a "National Geographic" special (7.5mil), was up a bit with a repeat of "Law & Order: CI" (11.3mil), but slumped again with "UC: Undercover" (8.5mil).
    Compared to last season, well, let's just don't. (December 10)
 
 

Weekend spells gains for ABC
    On paper, ABC's Friday and Saturday nigth line-ups may seem like a mess, but ti's actually up dramatically over last season. Take Fridays for instance. A year ago on Friday, the alphabet aired the mega bomb "Dot Comedy," which pulled in a sickening 4.2mil viewers. Add in "Two Guys and A Girl" (6.0mil), "Madigan Men" (5.5mil) and "Norm" (5.8mil), and you have a disaster. This year the net may not have drawn spectacular numbers, but the combo of "Americas Funniest Home Videos" (9.5mil), "All Star Bloopers" (8.2mil) and "Once & Again" (6.6mil) were up 26% over last season. The same held true on Saturday, where the movie "The Parent Trap" (8.7mil) increased 15% over last season. Finally, could these be some signs of hope?
    But some fo the other networks didn't have have that much luck, CBS in particular. While it's be trumpeting it's success this season, it has failed to point out was a disaster Friday nights are. This Friday, "Funny Flubs & Screw Ups" (7.1mil) and "That's Life" (7.0mil) basically cancelled each other out, and but for the grace of god "48 Hours" (9.5mil) saved the net from meltdown on the night. Compare the 7.9mil viewer average with last year's 12.6mil, a loss of 37%. And the line-up last season was special-free, consisting of "The Fugitive," (9.7mil) "CSI" (15.7mil) and "Nash Bridges" (12.3mil), with the bread of the sanwich being in repeats last season. Saturday night wasn't so bad. Thanks to football, CBS averaged 10.7mil on the night, up 9%.
    NBC did have a solid performance on Friday night, with "Law & Order: SVU" performing amazingly well. A repeats at 10pm drew 14.2mil viewers, up 28% from a repeat on the same night last season. The net, however, got bogged down by a repeat "Pearl Harbour" (7.3mil) special at 8pm, leaving "Dateline NBC" (10.2mil) to putter at 9pm. The net was up 9% over last season. It didn, however, dop 17% on Saturday thanks to "Figure Skating" drawing 7.0mil, down from last year's movie, which drew 8.4mil. But compared to what NBC has been drawing for Saturday movies this season, figure skating was a lifesaver. Peacock movies have been averaging about 5 million viewers on the night so far.
    And then there's Fox. Showing a huge increase of 102% on Saturday solely because it flamed-out with the "GQ Men of the Year Awards" last season (3.6mil), it sputtered out on Fridays with "Dark Angel" (6.2mil) and a repeat "24" (4.6mil), down 27% from last season. You know, Fox, you keep bragging that 18 million viewers a week watch "24" because of it's multiple airings. Maybe if you cut down, 18mil would watch the one airing. But that's just a thought... (December 9)

CBS wins Thursday, "CSI" on top
    CBS won Thursday night for the second time this month, much thanks to NBC's "ER" being in repeats. The network drew an average of 17.9mil viewers, led by the night's, and likely the week's highest rated show "CSI" (24.1mil). Surprizingly, "Survivor" (17.4mil) actually came in below the networks average at 8pm, the first time it has ever done that. It got beaten out by "Friends" (22.5), which drew high enough in the half-hour to compensate for the return of "Inside Schwartz" (15.3mil).
Elsewhere at 8pm, ABC's "Charlie Brown" special came in at a solid 12.0mil. The UPN was fifth with "WWF Smackdown!" (6.2mil), while Fox's duo of "The Family Guy" (5.2mil) and "The Tick" (5.3mil) languished in fifth.
    At 9pm, "CSI" and the eye won, with "Will & Grace" (16.1mil) and a sinking "Just Shoot Me" (13.7mil) coming in second. "Millionaire" was third (11.1mil), with "Temptation Island" (7.1mil) barely coming in fourth. A repeat "Charmed" (3.2mil) got stuck in sixth. At 10pm, the race was alot closer than it has been all season. "ER" (13.5mil) tied with "PrimeTime Thursday" for first place, with CBS's "The Agency" (12.3mil) not far behind.
    Compared to last season, there were two big winners and four big losers. The WB was down 30%, NBC 29% (much thanks to a new "ER" airing at 10pm last season), the UPN and ABC both 17%. On the upside, Fox was up 29% (proving just how cruddy it's Thursday night line-up was last season) and CBS jumped 129%. Thanks to that jump, the nets recorded a net gain on the night, up a tiny 1% over last season. (December 7)

News from the eye
    The trade papers were dominated by news from CBS on Friday, mostly at the expense of NBC. First off, the net is working with all three show runners from NBC's "Law & Order" series (all three series, BTW) to create three new dramas for next season. They say good things come in threes. Three show runners, three new dramas, the new hits? CBS would hope so- should all three dramas make it onto the fall schedule, "L&O" producer Dick Wolf would have to find new show-runners for all three series, possibly spelling creative termoil and a ratings fall. Thinking about it, Wednesdays and Fridays at 10pm are two of CBs's worst performing timeslots... conspiracy? I think so.
    Another kick in the head for NBC was the news that CBS has signed up the producers of "ER" to create a new medical drama for the network. CBS had already given the show a 13 episode commitment, and it will probably air in the fall of next season.
    And finally, CBS is hoping it's sweeps success with tribute specials ("Carol Burnett," "Micheal Jackson," "Lucile Ball") will carry over into the next sweeps period.
A special commemorating the 60th birthday of Muhammad Ali will air in February. During November, the net drew 17.8mil for the Ball special, 25.7 for the Jackson special and 29.8 for the Burnett special. So, according to my logic, the Ali special should draw about 1120.5 million viewers. Wait a minute.... (December 7)

Slow Wednesday strikes all
    Nobody won on a slow Wednesday night as almost all networks were divided among their own success and horror stories. Over on NBC, which won the night in total viewers, "The West Wing" (15.7mil) and "Law & Order" (16.3mil) repeat very well, but the same couldn't be said of "Ed," which continued to sink at 8pm (8.6mil). Fox had a similar story with a new episodes of "Titus" (8.3mil) and "The Bernie Mack Show" (9.8mil) doing well at 8 and 9pm, respectively, but "Grounded For Life" (7.3mil) and "The Tick" (7.8mil) lost alot of meat out of those sandwiches. ABC, surprise surprise, had the same problem. A repeat of "My Wife & Kids" (12.1mil) did very well at 8pm, as did 20/20 (13.1mil) at 10pm. But "The Drew Carey Show" (8.2mil) sunk at 9pm, a major black eye for the network.
    Over on CBS, things just went downhill, period. "60 Minutes II" (13.2mil) started off with some of its best marks of the season, but "The Amazing Race" (9.7mil) dropped from that, and "48 Hours" (6.6mil) did even worse at 10pm. Over on the little nets, the UPN did rather well with a repeat "Enterprise" (4.7mil), coming up with more than original "Voyager"s drew at this point last season. On the WB, "Dawsons Creek" (3.6mil) and "Felicity" (3.4mil) continued to sink. (December 6)

ABC battles back on Tuesday
    ABC won it's first Tuesday night in seemingly forever as it, gulp, won every hour of the night. Starting chronicologically, "Dharma & Greg" (11.1mil) and "Spin City" (10.1mil) finally started to do something at 8pm, winning the hour thanks to specials on the other networks. CBS's Martha Stewart special drew only 10.1mil,
while NBC's "Instyle: Homes" (8.8mil) drew even fewer. Fox avergaed just over 10mil in the hour with the Billboard Music Awards, averaging 11.9mil on the night.
    At 9pm, "NYPD Blue" took advantage of lax competition, roping in 15.1mil, beating out repeats of "Frasier" (12.6mil), "Scrubs" (9.5mil) and CBS's movie "Jack and The Bean Stock" (12.2mil). The same was true at 10pm where "Philly" managed an astounding 13.0mil, very close to it's premiere numbers and almost 3 million viewers higher than last week. It didn't hurt that its closet competition was CBS's movie, nor that "Dateline NBC" (11.1mil) continued to flouder on NBC. (December 5)

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