NEW YORK (AP) -- "Survivor: The Australian Outback" won the most viewers last week despite narrowly losing to "ER" in household ratings.
Nielsen Media Research said "ER" drew a 17.9 household rating which counts the number of television sets tuned to a given program. The number was 17.4 for "Survivor." However, 2.5 million fewer people actually watched "ER." A total of 29 million people saw "Survivor," Nielsen said.
Nielsen explains the discrepancy by saying more people gather around the average TV set at 8 p.m. EST, when CBS's "Survivor" airs, than are watching when NBC's drama begins two hours later.
CBS's sequel to last summer's smash hit shoved its primary competition, NBC's "Friends," down to third place in the weekly rankings, Nielsen said.
A prime-time edition of NBC's "Saturday Night Live," which filled the last 20 minutes against "Survivor," shared eighth place with the Sunday edition of ABC's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."
NBC's premiere of "XFL Football" won a healthy 30th place for a Saturday night, when viewership is down.
Overall for the week of Jan. 29 through Feb. 4, CBS and NBC tied in households with a 9.2 rating and 15 share (although NBC squeaked ahead in viewers: 13.59 million vs. 13.35 million).
In second place, ABC had 11.77 million viewers (7.9 rating, 13 share), while Fox had 10.13 million viewers (6.3 rating, 10 share).
The WB had 4.08 million viewers (2.6 rating, 4 share), UPN had 3.56 million viewers (2.4 rating, 4 share), and Pax TV had 1.47 million viewers (1.0 rating, 2 share).
In news broadcasts, "NBC Nightly News" held steady in first place with 11.2 million viewers (8.3 rating). ABC's "World News Tonight" had 10.2 million viewers (7.7 rating), while "The CBS Evening News" was third with 9.3 million viewers (7.0 rating).
A rating point represents 1,022,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 102.2 million TV homes. A share point is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of Jan. 29 through Feb. 4, the top 10 shows, their networks and ratings: "ER," NBC, 17.9; "Survivor II," CBS, 17.3; "Friends," NBC, 14.2; "CSI," CBS, 14.0; "Everybody Loves Raymond," CBS, 13.9; "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (Wednesday), ABC, 13.4; "Will & Grace," NBC, 12.6; tied: "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (Sunday), ABC, and "Saturday Night Live Prime-Time Extra," NBC, both 12.4; "The Practice," ABC, 12.1.
