• by Ken Liebeskind , October 25, 2001

Baseball fans around the country are looking forward to the upcoming World Series as evidenced by baseball is doing well on broadcast and cable in the latest Nielsen ratings.

Yankee games placed seventh and 25th in the broadcast ratings for Oct. 15-21 with game four against Seattle drawing a 19 share and household rating of 12.3. Game five against Oakland drew a 13 share and a 8.4 household rating. The games ran on Fox. Previous playoff games on The Family Channel, a new baseball broadcaster this year, ranked fifth and eighth in the cable rankings (for Oct. 8-14, the most recent cable ranking), with 3.1 and 3.0 household ratings. (The Family Channel, a Fox network, got the games because Fox determined which of its properties would carry them.)

Other sports broadcasts also fared well, with ESPN regular season football leading the cable rankings. ABC's Monday Night Football ranked 18th on broadcast.

This week's top shows were E.R. (NBC), Friends (NBC) and CSI (CBS). They had shares of 28, 25 and 21 and household ratings of 17.6, 16 and 14.1.

In its third episode, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, the third Law and Order series (NBC), ranked sixth with a 21 share and a 12.9 household rating. It ran Wednesday at 10 p.m. in Law and Order's regular time slot in an effort to introduce the show to regular Law and Order viewers. A network spokeswoman says NBC is encouraged by the popularity of the show and the network announced yesterday that the show was picked up for the full 2001-02 season.

NBC's Crossing Jordan was also picked up. Among the other shows that have been picked up for the rest of the season are Alias and According to Jim (ABC), Undeclared (Fox) and Reba, Maybe It's Me and Raising Dad (WB).

On the news front, Bush's presidential address and America Strikes Back (both CNN) made the top 10 cable ratings. The only news show on the latest broadcast ratings was 60 Minutes (CBS), ranked 15th.

Survivor: Africa ranked ninth, dropping from seventh last week, it's premiere episode.

NBC and CBS led the way in prime averages. Both had 14 shares with NBC leading the household ratings 8.8 to 8.6. ABC was 11/6.7, Fox 9/5.3, UPN 5/3 and WB 4/2.9.