TV Ratings : ABC’s ‘Grace Under Fire’ Improves on ‘Home’

After spending the first month of the new TV season on top of the ratings, ABC’s “Home Improvement” fell to second last week, edged out by the show that follows it on Tuesday nights, “Grace Under Fire.”

“Grace Under Fire,” which stars Brett Butler, was seen in about 19.5 million homes, according to figures released Tuesday by the A.C. Nielsen Co.

ABC had four other shows in the Top 10 but wound up in a tie with CBS for the weekly lead, with NBC in third despite its new hospital drama ‘ER” finishing No. 3 for the week. The only other first-year series to crack the Top 20 was NBC’s “Madman of the People.”

The most dramatic element in the weekly ratings was that only one network newsmagazine finished in the Top 20: CBS’ venerable “60 Minutes,” at No. 5. ABC’s once-mighty “PrimeTime Live,” pitted last Thursday against “ER” and “Eye to Eye,” finished 87th among the week’s 96 prime-time network programs.

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.

Program Station Rating 1. 60 Minutes KCBS 21.3 2. Seinfeld KNBC 20.6 3. Home Improvement KABC 20.4 4. Murder, She Wrote KCBS 20.0 5. ER KNBC 19.7 6. Roseanne KABC 19.6 7. Beverly Hills, 90210 KTTV 18.6 8. Grace Under Fire KABC 17.8 9. Frasier KNBC 17.4 10. Ellen KABC 16.2

Weekly Averages

CBS: 12.1

ABC: 12.1

NBC: 11.4

FOX: 7.7

Season to Date

ABC: 12.0

CBS: 11.8

NBC: 11.8

FOX: 7.6