• by December 15, 2000

By Anya Khait

He might have lost the election but Vice President Al Gore scored a victory over President-elect George Bush in the ratings Wednesday night. And NBC narrowly edged ABC on the historic night's special news coverage.

Gore's concession speech drew 66.2 million viewers on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC while 63.5 million viewers tuned in for Bush's victory address, according to Nielsen Media Research.

NBC drew 36 million viewers with a combined 26.1 rating for both live speeches, while 35.1 million tuned in on ABC, which had a combined 23.6 rating.

CBS drew 20 million viewers with a 14.1 rating.

CNN led the cable news outlets with 11.1 million viewers and a combined 7.7 rating for both speeches.

Fox News Channel drew 7.7 million viewers a combined 5.4 rating.

MSNBC pulled 6.9 million viewers with a 4.2 rating. In other news, "E.R" (NBC, Thu) was number one on Nielsen's list for the week ending December 10th with a rating of 19.0. It was followed by "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (ABC, 14.6, Tue), "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (ABC, 14.1, Wed), "Friends" (NBC, 13.6, Thu), "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (ABC, 13.1, Thu), "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (ABC, 12.8, Sun), "Just Shoot Me" (NBC, 12.7, Thu), "The Practice" (ABC, 12.6, Sun), "Will & Grace" (NBC, 12.0, Thu), "Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS, 11.7, Mon), "60 Minutes" (CBS, 11.3, Sun), "Movie: Runaway" (CBS, 10.9, Sun), "Touched By an Angel" (CBS, 10.9. Sun), "Frasier" (NBC, 10.8, Tue), "Becker" (CBS, 10.7, Mon), "Judging Amy" (CBS, 10.5, Tue), "Law & Order" (NBC, 10.5, Wed), "CSI" (CBS, 10.2, Fri), "Fox NFL Sunday" (ABC, 10.2, Sun), "West Wing" (NBC, 10.2, Wed), "Drew Carey Show" (ABC, 10.0, Wed), "Cursed" (NBC, 9.9, Thu), "Malcom In The Middle" (FOX, 9.9, Sun), "Monday Night Football" (ABC, 9.9, Mon), and "Simpsons" (FOX, 9.7, Sun).

- Anya Khait may be reached at anya@mediapost.com