Ratings from the 1990s

[soapfan770]

Nielsen Ratings from 30 years ago for December 5th-11th 1994:

The Nielsen TV ratings for last week shake down to a seasonal pattern, with 'E.R.' the only new show making a regular appearance on the top 10 program list. The ratings for the week ending Dec. 11 put 'Home Improvement' back at the top of the list, a spot that has been successfully challenged several times recently by 'Grace Under Fire,' the A.C. Nielson Co. reported Tuesday. The competition is a matter of joy for one of the networks -- ABC -- which has both shows. 'Home Improvement' got an unusually high rating of 22.3 and a 33 percent share of viewers, and 'Grace Under Fire' rated 21.5-32. Indeed, ABC is emerging as the dominant network for the 1994-95 TV season, with a 12.2 rating and 20 percent share of the viewing audience so far. Last week it registered 12-19, followed by NBC with 11.7-19 and CBS 10.7-17. Fox made a showing of 7.2-12 with only 15 hours of programming, compared to the networks' 22. ABC took Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday audiences. CBS claimed its usual dominance on Saturday and Sunday, leaving NBC with its hold on Thursday only. ABC and NBC each took four of the top 10 spots and CBS claimed two. The list included 'E.R.,' NBC's popular medical drama, in third place, followed by 'Seinfeld;' 'NYPD Blue;' '60 Minutes;' ABC's Monday night football game, Los Angeles Raiders vs. San Diego Chargers; NBC's Sunday night movie, 'National Lampoon Christmas,' a rerun; 'Murder, She Wrote;' and 'Mad About You.'

Dropping down to the top 20 list, only three other shows introduced this season were included. They are NBC's 'Madman of the People,' No. 13, NBC's 'Friends,' No. 16, and 'Me and the Boys,' No. 19. ABC was the leader, as it always is, in evening news coverage, registering 11-21. CBS was second with 9-18 and NBC third with 8.8-17. Each rating point represents about 942,000 households. A share is the percentage of TV sets in use that are tuned into a particular show or network.

1. Home Improvement ABC 22.3

2. Grace Under Fire ABC 21.5

3. E.R. NBC 21.0

4. Seinfeld NBC 20.7

5. NYPD Blue ABC 19.0

6. 60 Minutes CBS 18.2

7. Monday Night Football ABC 17.7

8. National Lampoon Christmas NBC 15.6

9. Murder, She Wrote CBS 15.4

10. Ellen ABC 15.1

11. Mad About You NBC 15.1

12. Roseanne ABC 15.1

13. Madman of The People NBC 14.9

14. 20/20 ABC 14.4

15. Full House ABC 14.3

16. Friends NBC 13.9

17. Reunion CBS 13.7

18. While Justice Sleeps NBC 13.6

19. Me and the Boys ABC 12.8

20. 48 Hours CBS 13.3

21. Murphy Brown CBS 13.0

22. Dave's World CBS 12.8

23. Hook NBC 12.6

24. Frasier NBC 12.6

25. Walker, Texas Ranger CBS 12.0

26. Nanny CBS 11.9

27. Dateline NBC NBC 11.4

28. Something Wilder NBC 11.3

29. Dr. Quinn CBS 11.1

30. Love & War CBS 11.1

31. All American Girl ABC 11.0

32. John Larroquette NBC 11.0

33. Law and Order NBC 10.8

34. Family Matters ABC 10.7

35. Gala At Ford's Theatre ABC 10.7

36. Step by Step ABC 10.7

37. Charlie Brown's Xmas NBC 10.6

38. Boy Meets World ABC 10.5

39. Northern Exposure CBS 10.5

40. Mr. Cooper ABC 10.4

41. X-Files Fox 10.4

42. Melrose Place Fox 10.3

43. It's A Wonderful Life NBC 10.2

44. Sister, Sister ABC 10.2

45. Heat Of The Night CBS 10.1

46. SeaQuest DSV NBC 10.1

47. Fresh Prince of Bel Air NBC 9.8

48. Dateline NBC NBC 9.6

49. Diagnosis Murder CBS 9.5

50. Simpsons Two Fox 9.5

51. Earth 2 NBC 9.3

52. Hearts Afire CBS 9.1

53. Funniest Home Videos ABC 9.0

54. Living Single Fox 9.0

55. Simpsons Fox 9.0

56. Matlock ABC 8.9

57. Rescue: 911 CBS 8.9

58. Chicago Hope CBS 8.7

59. Five Mrs. Buchanans CBS 8.7

60. Unsolved Mysteries NBC 8.7

61. Coach ABC 8.6

62. Dateline NBC NBC 8.6

63. Primetime Live ABC 8.6

64. Cosby Mysteries NBC 8.5

65. Married...With Children Fox 8.4

66. Martin Fox 8.4

67. Coach ABC 8.3

68. Something Wilder NBC 8.3

69. Boys Are Back CBS 8.0

70. Come Die With Me CBS 7.8

71. Touched By An Angel CBS 7.8

72. Cops 2 Fox 7.7

73. New York Undercover Fox 7.7

74. On Our Own ABC 7.7

75. Eye To Eye CBS 7.5

76. Wonderful World ABC 7.5

77. Billboard Music Awards Fox 7.3

78. Due South CBS 7.3

79. Cops Fox 7.2

80. Homicide NBC 7.1

81. My So Called Life ABC 6.4

82. George Carlin Show Fox 6.3

83. Lois & Clark ABC 6.1

84. Gladiator Fox 6.0

85. New York Undercover Fox 5.6

86. M.A.N.T.I.S. Fox 5.5

87. Party of Five Fox 5.5

88. Smart Kids Fox 4.1

 

Edited December 21, 2024 by soapfan770

[kalbir]

Friends doesn't really take off until February 1995, when NBC moved it from Thursday 8:30 pm to Thursday 9:30 pm. The following season Friends moved to Thursday 8 pm and that's when it blew up and we know the rest.

[soapfan770]

Outside of Wings and technically Frasier and Seinfeld,  Friends was the only other 8:30/9:30 NBC show of the 90s to be able to stand on its own. 

The quick collapses and plummets of shows like Caroline in the City, Boston Common, Suddenly Susan, Naked Truth,  Veronica’s Closet etc. are embarrassing and laughable. 
 

I think the first instance in the 90’s of that happening was when #17 Dear John moved out its cushy Thursday 9:30 slot and how fast it flamed out(Although it still a much better quality show than any of those late 90’s shows). 

[te.]

I missed a lot of the talk about the 1994-95 season, but it's always worthy to post the Vulture features of it from a decade ago: https://www.vulture.com/tags/1994-95-tv-week/

I think the A18-49 demographic ratings also paints a different picture from the regular Nielsen:

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As can be seen here, the youth skew of Fox's show was actually insane. Melrose Place was at #57 in the total ranking for the season, but forty places higher in the demographics, not far behind Beverly Hills 90210. Models Inc (#62) was unlucky to lose out getting a renewal considering Party of Five (#69) and New York Undercover (#60) did. 

Edited December 23, 2024 by te.

[kalbir]

@soapfan770 I've pointed this out before, but NBC got away with scheduling garbage shows at Thursday 8:30 pm/9:30 pm in the Seinfeld/ER/Friends era that finished in the Top 10 because CBS and ABC were in their primetime mess eras. It's because of the garbage shows that I don't hold the Seinfeld/ER/Friends era of NBC Thursday to the same regard that I do the The Cosby Show/Cheers era of NBC Thursday.

Edited December 23, 2024 by kalbir

[bongobong]

Caroline in the City wasn't a great show but it does deserve a tier above the rest of satellite shows. In its second year behind Frasier it held its own, even on its tryout in Frasier's slot for a week. In year 3 when it moved to Monday at 9 - though it fell to the 40s - it came in 2nd in its slot ahead of Cybill and year 1 of Ally McBeal. Of course, the wheels came off in the last year opposite a surging Everybody Loves Raymond and year 2 of Ally Beal (its highest rated season). As a fun piece of trivia, it was Will & Grace's original lead-in before the show got 2 timeslot upgrades that year.

[kalbir]

Lets keep it real here. Fox, UPN, The WB built their networks off the backs of the African-American audience.

Fox early hits besides Married with Children and The Simpsons were In Living Color, Martin, Living Single, New York Undercover. The shift came with peak 90210, Melrose taking off, X Files premiering, and Fox getting NFL broadcasting rights. In Living Color ended in 1994, Martin ended in 1997, and Living Single and New York Undercover ended in 1998.

UPN and The WB sitcom line ups were mostly African-American focused but when their teen dramas took off, they cut back on the African-American sitcoms. I can't recall an African-American focused drama on either UPN or The WB.

[soapfan770]

UPN did have a legal drama starring Tate Diggs called Kevin Hill (not to be confused with Diggs’ embarrassing character Sugar Hill on GL) but in only lasted a season or so around 2004. I can’t recall if UPN did have any others or not.
 

The one thing I do give the old UPN credit for was continuing to create and air new sitcoms like Half & Half, Everyone Hates Chris, All of US etc. after their original ones ended over time, where as The WB quickly became very lily white by the 2000-01 season as the network reached its peak.

[Khan]

Oh, absolutely!  No arguments here, lol!

[soapfan770]

I was reading up on the ill-fated Carol & Company when I came across an article going over the upcoming ill-fated 91-92 season for NBC:

NBC Shakes Up Its Prime-Time Program Lineup for Fall Season : Entertainment: In addition to TV’s No. 1 show, ‘Cheers,’ the network is adding six new comedies, two dramas and an adventure series.

By RICK DU BROW 

May 21, 1991  

NBC, stung by a sharp drop-off in viewers last season, on Monday unveiled a “re-energized” fall schedule for the 1991-92 season that features James Garner, Robert Guillaume, Marlee Matlin and Sam Waterston in new weekly series.

Still buoyed by TV’s No. 1 show, “Cheers,” the top-rated network canceled Fred Dryer’s long-running police show, “Hunter”; yanked Andy Griffith’s program about an attorney, “Matlock,” promising that it would return “at a later date,” and parted company with Carol Burnett, rejecting her request to expand her half-hour “Carol & Company” comedy anthology into a weekly, one-hour, revue-style series.

In a bid to create major new hits after several seasons of near-total failure in launching smash ratings successes, NBC is also splitting up its previously untouchable Saturday-night tandem of “The Golden Girls” and “Empty Nest,” using them as lead-ins to launch two comedies.

In general, however--despite promises of “a whole new NBC”--the schedule appears to be a conservative reworking of last season’s offerings.

NBC, the network ratings leader for six consecutive seasons, will introduce nine series come fall: six comedies, two dramas and a half-hour fantasy adventure, “Eerie, Indiana,” about a 13-year-old boy who has “visions of unspeakable horrors” in the seemingly idyllic small town in which he lives.

Also returning is “Sisters,” an hour drama that debuted 10 days ago amid furor when NBC cut out a discussion of orgasms among the four siblings of the show in the program’s trademark opening scene in a sauna.

Burnett said Monday that there’s “a very strong possibility” that her hour comedy revue will wind up next season on CBS, where she starred for 12 years in one of TV’s most famous variety series. CBS is expected to announce its fall schedule later this week. The network declined comment on whether Burnett would move there.

But Burnett said: “We’re about an inch or two apart.” Asked about NBC’s denial of her request to expand her show, even though “Carol & Company” averaged a strong 24% share of the audience this season, she said: “Maybe they’re wearing their ties too tight and can’t think.”

Burnett said she had tired of the anthology format because “it was tantamount to doing a sitcom pilot a week. It was too hard.” After rejecting her one-hour series concept, NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield said through a spokeswoman: “We didn’t have room for an hour. We said, ‘Feel free to take it someplace else.’ ”

Garner, one of TV’s best-loved stars in such series as “Maverick” and “The Rockford Files,” will headline the sitcom “Man of the People,” playing a con artist “who is named to fill a city council seat previously held by his late ex-wife.”

Guillaume, of “Soap” and “Benson” fame, stars in the sitcom “Pacific Station” as a veteran detective “whose beat is the eccentric beach community of Venice.”

 

 

Oscar-winner Matlin (“Children of a Lesser God”) stars with Mark Harmon in the hour drama “Reasonable Doubts,” about “two unlikely partners brought together by the Chicago criminal justice system.” Matlin portrays a hearing-impaired assistant district attorney, and Harmon is a police investigator.

Waterston (“The Killing Fields”) will appear in a drama series with a provocative premise, “I’ll Fly Away,” playing “a principled prosecuting attorney in a small Southern city in the late 1950s” as the civil rights movement is taking hold. He has three children and a “forthright new black housekeeper” (Regina Taylor).

In an unusual move for such a drama, “I’ll Fly Away” will be broadcast at the family hour of 8 p.m. on Tuesday. And significantly, NBC’s back-to-back series of “I’ll Fly Away,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Law & Order” will all feature major, continuing roles in dramatic shows for black performers. Howard Rollins co-stars with Carroll O’Connor in the police story “In the Heat of the Night,” and Richard Brooks portrays an assistant district attorney in “Law & Order.”

 

 

NBC series that have been bumped from the past season include “Ferris Bueller,” “The Fanelli Boys,” “Shannon’s Deal,” “Amen,” “Parenthood,” “Working It Out,” “American Dreamer,” “Hull High,” “Down Home,” “Lifestories,” “Dark Shadows,” “Sunday Best,” “Disney Presents: The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage” and “Midnight Caller.” An NBC spokeswoman said several of these shows might return.

Other NBC series debuting this fall include:

* “The Adventures of Mark and Brian,” a “reality-based” comedy starring Los Angeles radio disc jockeys Brian Phelps and Mark Thompson, who will “fulfill lifelong daredevil dreams” in their weekly, half-hour outings.

* “Flesh ‘n’ Blood,” a sitcom from the producers of “Cheers,” dealing with an assistant district attorney (Lisa Darr) who is faced with a charming con man who claims to be her brother and who, with a son and daughter, provides her with an instant family.

 

* “Nurses,” a sitcom from writer-producer Susan Harris (“Soap,” “The Golden Girls,” “Empty Nest”), about five nurses--four women and a man.

* “The Torkelsons,” a sitcom concerning a sensitive 14-year-old girl who is mortified by her “crazy-quilt suburban family” held together by her mother, “a cash-poor single parent who will stop at nothing to provide for her children.”

NBC is moving “The Golden Girls” to the lead-off 8 p.m. slot on Saturdays and has scheduled “The Torkelsons” between the long-running hit and another success, “Empty Nest,” thus giving the new entry a choice slot. “Nurses” will follow “Empty Nest”--giving Harris three of NBC’s Saturday night comedies.

 

With NBC losing about 13% of its audience this past season, the 1991-92 prime-time schedule is critical for the TV network subsidiary of General Electric Co. ABC and rebounding CBS have closed in on NBC, which has not increased its audience over a previous season since the 1986-87 competition.

In the past season, some of NBC’s aging but key program staples saw serious audience declines: “The Cosby Show” dropped 26%; “Night Court,” 21%; “The Golden Girls,” 18%; “L.A. Law,” 15%, and “Unsolved Mysteries,” 13%.

 

Here is NBC’s night-by-night schedule:

Sunday: “The Adventures of Mark and Brian,” “Eerie, Indiana,” “Man of the People,” “Pacific Station,” “Sunday Night at the Movies.”

 

 

Monday: “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” “Blossom,” “Monday Night at the Movies.”

Tuesday: “I’ll Fly Away,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “Law & Order.”

Wednesday: “Unsolved Mysteries,” “Night Court,” “Seinfeld,” “Quantum Leap.”

Thursday: “The Cosby Show,” “A Different World,” “Cheers,” “Wings,” “L.A. Law.”

Friday: “Real Life With Jane Pauley,” “Expose,” “Dear John,” “Flesh ‘n’ Blood,” “Reasonable Doubts.”

Saturday: “The Golden Girls,” “The Torkelsons,” “Empty Nest,” “Nurses,” “Sisters.”

[Khan]

"Matlock" would return, of course, but not on NBC, lol.

Personally, I liked "Carol & Company."  Not every episode was great - that's just the nature of doing a weekly anthology series - but I thought the premise was different (but not TOO different) and the cast was strong.  On the other hand, I get what Carol Burnett meant when she talked about how grueling the show was for her to do.

I love how they always refer to "Flesh 'n' Blood" as being "from the producers of 'Cheers'."  The truth is, only two people from "Cheers" had worked on the show (three, if you count James Burrows, who directed an episode); and one of them (Tim Berry) was the line producer.

[kalbir]

1991-1994 was a brief NBC primetime mess era, as they transitioned from the Cosby/Cheers era to the Seinfeld/ER/Friends era.

Then again 1990/91 to 1992/93 was 1980s hangover, and I don't feel the 1990s really began television-wise until 1993/94.

[Paul Raven]

NBC had way too many comedies on the schedule. I think the ideal is 2 comedy block nights -8 shows in total and  another hour or 2 elsewhere. Total of 12 at the most.