• by February 14, 2001

(AP) - A week after its smashing Saturday night debut, XFL football lost more than half its audience, ignited a tempest within the network by delaying “Saturday Night Live” and likely caused NBC to tumble from first to third in the weekly ratings.

CBS scored a ratings win during the important February sweeps period, although NBC narrowly edged Fox in the 18-to-49-year-old age demographic it most cares about.

The XFL audience slipped from 13.9 million for its premiere to only 6.5 million last week, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released Tuesday. The show dropped from 30th place in the weekly ratings into a tie for 79th.

“Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels is also reportedly furious that last Saturday’s game ran nearly 45 minutes long, delaying his show’s start until Sunday morning.

Week two of the “Survivor” vs. “Friends” competition was nearly identical to the first. The outback competitors drew 29 million viewers, while the NBC sitcom had 22.4 million.

CBS’ revived fortunes on Thursday night helped the network to a weekly victory. ABC kept the race tight with a strong Sunday for “The Practice” and its rock star edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

For the week, CBS averaged 13.5 million viewers (9.2 rating, 15 share), ABC had 13.2 million (8.6, 14), NBC had 12.6 million (8.6, 14), Fox had 10.7 million (6.7, 11), the WB had 3.9 million (2.6, 4), UPN had 3.6 million (2.4, 4) and Pax TV had 1.4 million (1.0, 2).

NBC’s “Nightly News” handily won the evening news ratings race by 2 million viewers. It had 11.6 million viewers (8.4 rating, 16 share), the “CBS Evening News” had 9.64 million (7.1, 14) and ABC’s “World News Tonight” had 9.63 million (7.4, 14).

A rating point represents 1,022,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 102.2 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Feb. 5-11, the top 10 shows, their networks and ratings: “ER,” NBC, 19.0; “Survivor II,” CBS, 17.4; “The Practice,” ABC, 14.6; “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” (Sunday), ABC, 14.3; “Friends,” NBC, 13.9; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 13.8; “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” (Wednesday), ABC, 13.7; “Law and Order,” NBC, 13.5; “Everybody Loves Raymond,” CBS, 13.4; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 13.0.