• by October 25, 2000

By Anya Khait

The first casualties of the new season are at NBC. Network execs have pulled Monday night comedies "Tucker" and "Daddio" from the schedule after three lackluster weeks. Starting next Monday, Dateline NBC will air from 8-9 p.m. ET/PT. The comedy duo led NBC to its lowest rated Monday night ever this week. The network finished fourth on the night in all major ratings categories, total viewers (7.3 million), adults 18-49 (3.0 rating/7 share) and in households (5.1/8), according to national data from Nielsen Media Research.

Sophomore comedy "Daddio" led the night off with only 5.5 million viewers and a 2.0/5 in adults 18-49. New series "Tucker" followed with 4.1 million viewers and a 1.5/4 in adults 18-49. NBC execs were not saying if Dateline was a full-time Monday player or if they had other series ready to join the lineup. Fellow new series "Deadline," didn't fare too well Monday night either. "Deadline," from Law & Order producer Dick Wolf, averaged 6.7 million viewers and a 2.7/6 in adults 18-49.

However, NBC did win the overall prime time ratings race for the third week of the fall season with a 5.0 rating among adults 18-49. The network prevailed despite a slow start that included those Monday ex-series and an underwhelming 5.2/14 for the climactic game in the ALCS between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners. Baseball may not have been very good to NBC, but Thursday night was with strong bookends of Friends (11.7/35) and ER (13/35) leading that night.

Fox fared well with a 4.7, sustained by two strong World Series games, with ABC following at 4.6, making it mark on the continued strength of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?"

CBS isn't looking particularly strong in its post-Survivor mode with a 3.4. Its remake of "The Fugitive" flailed with 2.5/9 rating on Friday. UPN and WB followed the leaders with a 1.9 and 1.8, respectively.

ABC actually led the week in total viewers, with 12.9 million, closely followed by NBC at 12 million and Fox and CBS with 11.4 million.

The debut of Fox's new David E. Kelley series Boston Public fared well in the national ratings. The series averaged 13.7 million viewers and a 6.1 rating/16 share in adults 18-49, according to fast national data from Nielsen Media Research. The show improved its 8 p.m. time period 56% in adults 18-49 and 73% in total viewers compared with the debut of Time of Your Life last fall. Boston Public won its time period in adults 18-49, total viewers and households (9.4/14).

The season premiere of "Ally McBeal" at 9 p.m. ET/PT actually dropped some viewers from its Boston Public lead-in, but gained in adults 18-49. Kelley's other series averaged a 6.8/15 in adults 18-49 and 13.2 million viewers-up nearly a million viewers from its season average a year ago.

Fox's all-New York World Series is outdrawing the league championship series. But the numbers are still down from last year's fall classic, based on national Nielsen results. Fo