Baseball pushes Fox to top of weekly ratings

Thu., Oct. 28, 2004

David Bauder Associated Press

Baseball has been very, very good to Fox.

A classic seven-game league championship series and the start of a World Series involving two storied franchises last week led the network to its best week in prime-time ratings in 2 1/2 years, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The climactic Oct. 20 game of the Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees American League series drew 31.5 million television viewers, the most-watched baseball game since Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.

The thrilling sixth game of the ALCS, the third of four straight do-or-die games won by the Red Sox, had 25.1 million viewers, Nielsen said.

The World Series between the Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals also started strong. Saturday’s first game was the most-watched World Series opening game since 1996.

Baseball didn’t hurt ABC’s new hit, “Desperate Housewives,” which pulled in 21.5 million viewers Sunday night despite competition on the East Coast from the World Series’ second game. It did deflate the season premiere of NBC’s “The West Wing,” however, which had only 12.3 million viewers on Oct. 20.

Fox averaged 22 million viewers for the week (13.6 rating, 22 share), CBS had 11.6 million (7.8, 12), NBC had 9.6 million (6.5, 10), ABC had 8.9 million (5.8, 9), UPN had 3.8 million (2.5, 4) and the WB 3.6 million (2.4, 4).

A ratings point represents 1,096,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 109.6 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

The top 10 shows for the week ending Sunday: American League Championship Series, Game 7: Boston vs. N.Y. Yankees, Fox, 31.5 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 26.5 million; World Series Game 2: St. Louis vs. Boston, Fox, 25.5 million; American League Championship Series, Game 6: Boston vs. N.Y. Yankees, Fox, 25.1 million; World Series Game 1: Boston vs. St. Louis, Fox, 23.2 million; “Desperate Housewives,” ABC, 21.5 million; National League Championship Series, Game 7: Houston vs. St. Louis, Fox, 19.8 million; “CSI: Miami,” CBS, 19.8 million; “Survivor: Vanuatu,” CBS, 19.2 million; “Without a Trace,” CBS, 18.5 million.