Amateur singers, sports help Fox win US TV week
NEW YORK, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Fox ruled prime-time television ratings last week as the combination of "American Idol" and a closely-fought football playoff game trumped everything broadcast by the other major networks.
Nielsen Media Research's weekly figures, released on Wednesday, again showed the influence of the screenwriters' strike on TV ratings. Scripted shows made up just three of the top 10 prime-time broadcasts for the week: NBC's "Law and Order: SVU," CBS's "CSI: Miami," and Fox's "Terminator: Sarah Conner Chronicles."
Otherwise, sports and reality programs dominated the week, with Fox's broadcast of the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers playoff game winning the most 18-49 year-old viewers, the group most prized by advertisers.
Fox's premiere of its blockbuster talent show "American Idol" also scored big audience numbers, as expected. Its return for a new season attracted more than 33 million viewers on Tuesday, Jan. 15 -- down from a year ago but still far ahead of anything offered by the other networks.
Fox broadcast another "American Idol" the following night, scoring another strong audience and helping its overall weekly prime-time ratings climb 51 percent from a year ago.
NBC's unscripted shows also turned in solid performances, anchored by "Deal or No Deal," "American Gladiators" and "Apprentice 7," although the network's weekly ratings dropped 13 percent from last year.
ABC and CBS fared worse last week as prime-time ratings for the 18-49 audience dropped 35 percent and 56 percent, respectively, according the Nielsen figures.
Undercutting ratings is the Writers Guild of America strike against the major Hollywood film and television studios, which is now in its 12th week and has left viewers without new episodes of nearly all the top scripted shows.
For the first time since early December, the striking writers will meet face-to-face this week with studio executives for "informal discussions" that could lead to more formal negotiations.
The screenwriters walked off the job on Nov. 5, a time when TV ratings were already under pressure from audiences choosing to spend more time with alternative media like video games and the Internet. Fall prime-time ratings for the networks fell about 10 percent.
CBS is a unit of CBS Corp (CBS.N), Fox is a unit of News Corp NWSa.N, ABC is unit of Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) and NBC is majority-owned by General Electric Co (GE.N). (Reporting by Paul Thomasch; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
