Ratings Archives: Week of June 8, 1998

The last three games of the 1998 NBA Finals grabbed the top three spots, for NBC. The games averaged 31.8 million viewers, with the decisive game 6 hauling in nearly 36 million viewers, on a Sunday night. The post game show, following game 6, took the #4 spot on the weekly chart, with over 26 million viewers. All three pre-game shows ranked within the top 11 spots, giving the NBA 7 of the top 11 programs of the week.

NBC's dominance didn't stop with just its NBA Finals coverage. The network added seven more programs within the weekly top 20, including two editions of DATELINE, which ranked 5th and 6th. NBC posted a 70% advantage over #2, CBS and nearly doubled up ABC.

Not many shows were in original episodes, but NBC did give us the HOUSE RULES series finale. The episode drew just 6.4 million viewers, ranking 74th on the week. CBS had the series SIMPLE LIFE, starring Judith Light and featured a young Sara Rue. It ranked 71st on the week.
ABC had a pair of Thursday night dramas. C-16: FBI and PREY. PREY featured Debra Messing as an anthropologist studying genetic variation in humans.Both shows did poor in the ratings, ranking 85th and 89th, respectively.

The week's five lowest rated programs were:

5) NICK FRENO (WB) - 1.7 HH rating / 3 share
4) CLUELESS (UPN) - 1.6 HH rating / 2 share
3) ALREADY ALREADY (WB) - 1.6 HH rating / 2 share
1) THE PARENT 'HOOD (WB) - 1.5 HH rating / 3 share
1) CLUELESS (UPN) - 1.4 HH rating / 2 share

Nielsen Broadcast ratings chart for the week of June 8, 1998.