Ratings Archives: Week of December 22, 1997

Its the week of Christmas, 1997 and with just about everything in repeats, ratings are down.

ABC takes the deflated week with a 7.6 average rating. It claims the #1 program of the week MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL. The NFL game drew a HH rating of 15.3 and total average viewership of 22 million viewers. That is about 4 million more viewers than the #2 program, 60 MINUTES.  In all, ABC produced five top 20 programs.

NBC took the #2 spot with an average 7.5 HH rating. The Must-See-TV line up of Thursday aired on Christmas Day. All five programs drew at least 12 million viewers, lead by SEINFELD with over 16 million. SEINFELD was the highest ranking NBC program at #6.

CBS finished third with a 6.8 HH rating. Its Sunday power series of 60 MINUTES and TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL finished #2 and #3. respectively, each drawing over 18 million viewers.  CBS also did well with the special TV movie, I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, starring Jack Palance, Ann Jillian and Robert Hays, on Tuesday night. The movie drew 14.7 million viewers and a 9.9 HH rating, placing 8th for the week.

FOX narrowed the gap, but still finished 5th with a 5.6 rating. Its highest ranking program was the NFC Wildcard Playoff game, Post-Game show (#7) on Sunday evening. That helped the Sunday repeats do well, lead by THE X-FILES (16) with 14.5 million viewers.

The WB and UPN were both rating down into the mid-twos.

With the first half of the season in the books, NBC leads all networks with a 10.4 HH rating. CBS is just one point behind in second place, followed by ABC, a 1/2 point behind CBS. FOX is holding strong in 5th with a 7.2 HH rating, while UPN still performs better than The WB, 3.1 to 2.9, respectively.


Nielsen Broadcast ratings chart for the week of December 22, 1997