TV Ratings : Football Kickoff Helps Fox Score on Sunday Night

Fox’s Sunday-night program lineup got a boost from its first regular season NFL games last weekend, the network reported Wednesday, with the prime-time ratings climbing by 16% from the same day a year ago and trailing only CBS between 7 and 10 p.m.

The improvement was even better--26%--among viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, a demographic group sought by many advertisers. Indeed, Fox said that even though the overall ratings for the Sunday prime-time block were unspectacular, it beat all three network rivals in most of the key demographics. ABC, CBS and NBC were showing reruns against Fox’s first-run programming, including three series premieres.

“Hardball,” a baseball comedy, was the highest rated of the new Fox shows, finishing 62nd among the week’s 89 network prime-time programs in terms of homes reached. “Wild Oats” was 69th and “Fortune Hunter,” airing opposite CBS’ “60 Minutes,” was 81st.

In their second outings last week, Fox’s ratings for “M.A.N.T.I.S.” (at No. 75) were down 10% from the premiere, while those for ABC’s “My So-Called Life” (at No. 76) were down 32%.

Southland Ratings

Here are A. C. Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. Each rating point equals 50,064 households.

Sta- Rat- Program tion ing 1. Home Improvement KABC 17.4 2. Grace Under Fire KABC 15.4 3. Roseanne KABC 14.8 4. Married . . . With Children KTTV 14.4 5. Seinfeld KNBC 14.3 6. Full House KABC 13.9 7. The Simpsons KTTV 13.6 8. Living Single KTTV 13.6 9. Family Matters KABC 13.3 10. 20/20 KABC 13.3

Weekly Averages

NBC: 9.8

CBS: 9.2

ABC: 9.2

FOX: 6.2