Word: nielsen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...prime-time supremacy was, by most accounts, a stunning upset. CBS, which began the season last fall in third place among the three major networks, plodded along to a victory in the ratings over four-year champion ABC, whose jackrabbit programming shuffles fell flat. Final score: CBS, 19.6 Nielsen points for the seven-month period; ABC, 19.5; and NBC, in its first full season under Programming Whiz Fred Silverman, an embarrassing 17.4. "The victory went to the network with armchair, baggy-suits stability," says Alan Horn, president of Norman Lear's Tandem Productions. "CBS makes careful decisions and sticks...
Statistically, a mere .1 percentage point edge in the season's Nielsen ratings is negligible. It means that in an average week, only 76,000 TV set-owning households, out of 76 million in the U.S., have chosen to watch CBS over ABC. But as politicians know, it's not simply the margin of victory that counts, but also the psychological advantage of momentum. "What matters is that CBS came from behind, and it's now ABC that must battle the champ," says Robert Buchanan, executive vice president of the J. Walter Thompson agency. "This season...
...Still a British Colony: Upstairs, Downstairs; Elizabeth R; The Six Wives of Henry VIII; Civilisation; I, Claudius; The Pallisers; The Duchess of Duke Street; Monty Python's Flying Circus. The Horatio Alger Award: To ABC, the little engine that could, for puffing its way into the Nielsen station and becoming the top-rated network in 1976, after a lifetime in last place. Most Watched Show: Roots, which not only broke all records of the '70s, but was also the most popular TV entertainment in history...
...past few seasons, television insiders have tended to talk mostly about two networks-front-running ABC and third-place NBC. Last week all that changed. After the 1979-80 season's first Nielsen sweeps, second-place CBS quietly rose to the top of the ratings. It was the first time since January 1976 that ABC had not won the network numbers game...
...this fall, ABC broke one of TV's sacrosanct laws: it moved winning shows to new time periods. Such traditional Top Ten hits as Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy have all suffered from being shifted. Some have at times fallen to the bottom half of the Nielsen chart. Made-for-TV movies and miniseries, usually a strength for ABC, have also proved poor draws this season...