They Came, Saw, Left: Couric Drops to 3rd

Associated Press
Wednesday, September 13, 2006

NEW YORK, Sept. 12 -- Katie Couric led the "CBS Evening News" to its first weekly ratings win in more than five years, but her honeymoon may be short -- she slipped to third place on Monday.

Couric's first evening-news broadcast, on Sept. 5, brought in nearly 13.6 million curious viewers. The numbers went down through the rest of the week but she stayed in first place each day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

On Monday, the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an estimated 8.3 million people tuned in to NBC's "Nightly News." ABC's "World News" had 7.9 million and Couric's broadcast had 7.5 million.

That's the same pecking order as before Couric started and, with a handful of exceptions, for the past several years.

"As we've said publicly and repeatedly from day one, our focus is on the long-term developments, not the short term," said CBS News President Sean McManus. "However, given that it was a somewhat atypical night of viewing, to be in this close competition for first place shows just how far we have come in just one week."

Last week, "CBS Evening News" averaged 10.2 million viewers, NBC's "Nightly News" had 7.1 million and ABC's "World News" had 6.9 million. The last time the CBS news program won a week was in June 2001.

Football dominated prime time, with games and pre-game shows accounting for seven of Nielsen's 10 top shows last week. The premiere of NBC's Sunday night NFL game, with an attractive quarterback matchup of the Manning brothers, led the way with 22.6 million viewers.

Fox had some bragging rights, though: Its Sunday night football highlights show, "The O.T.," beat the first edition of NBC's competing highlights show.

NBC and Fox, which already has premiered several of its fall shows, broke CBS's stranglehold on the top ratings spot. NBC averaged 9.7 million viewers for the week. Fox averaged 9.3 million but won among the 18-to-49-year-old viewers advertisers seek. ABC had 7.5 million, CBS 7.1 million, the WB 1.7 million and UPN 890,000.

The week's top 10 shows, in order, were: NBC's NFL Football: Indianapolis vs. New York Giants; Fox's "House"; NBC's NFL Football: Miami vs. Pittsburgh, "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick" and "Thursday Night Pre-Kick"; Fox's "Standoff"; ABC's Ohio State vs. Texas college football game; Fox's "The O.T."; NBC's "Football Night in America"; and Fox's "The Simpsons."

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