NEW YORK - Books, TV movies, a presidential candidate and now a philanthropic reality show. Maybe everything Oprah Winfrey touches really does turn to gold.
Sunday's premiere of "Oprah's Big Give" on ABC was seen by 15.7 million people, the largest audience in prime-time last week for any program not named "American Idol," according to Nielsen Media Research.
ABC also did well with Monday's prime-time remake of "A Raisin in the Sun," which finished in the top 10 with 12.7 million viewers.
Meanwhile, NBC found that few people cared about its much-ballyhooed transfer of a series, "Quarterlife," from the Internet to broadcast. Only 3.1 million people watched, earning it a quick hook and shift to the Bravo cable network. Among the top four broadcasters, only a Saturday night rerun of an "All-Star Tribute to Jimmy Kimmel" had a smaller audience.
In a sign of the time for television networks, and a residue of the writers strike, none of the seven most-watched programs last week were scripted. "Lost" was the only traditional comedy or drama to hit the top 10.
Fox easily won the week, averaging 13.7 million viewers (8.0 rating, 13 share). CBS had 8.1 million (5.2, 9), ABC had 7.9 million (5.1, 8), NBC had 7.2 million (4.7, 8), the CW had 2.2 million (1.4, 2), My Network TV had 1.2 million (0.8, 1) and ION Television had 480,000 (0.3, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a prime-time average of 3.5 million viewers (1.8 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 660,000 (0.4, 1) and Azteca had 150,000 (0.1, 0).
NBC's "Nightly News" won the evening news ratings race, averaging 9.2 million viewers (6.2 rating, 12 share). ABC's "World News" averaged 9 million viewers (6.1, 12) and the "CBS Evening News" had 7 million (4.7, 9).
A ratings point represents 1,128,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 112.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of Feb. 25-March 2, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 28.59 million; "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 27.55 million; "American Idol" (Thursday), Fox, 26.23 million; "Oprah's Big Give," ABC, 15.68 million; "Deal or No Deal" (Monday), NBC, 15.43 million; "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," ABC, 14.87 million; "Don't Forget the Lyrics," Fox, 14.4 million; "Lost," ABC, 12.89 million; Movie: "A Raisin in the Sun," ABC, 12.69 million; "Survivor: Micronesia," CBS, 12.53 million.
---
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is a division of CBS Corp. Fox is a unit of News Corp. NBC is owned by General Electric Co. Telemundo is owned by General Electric. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.
---
On the Net:
