• by August 8, 2001

(AP) - NBC's gross-out summer reality show, "Fear Factor," topped the Nielsen Media Research ratings last week in the second-to-last episode of its run.

"Fear Factor" is the summer's breakout hit, although with 15.4 million viewers last Monday, it's nowhere near the magnitude of "Survivor" and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" the past two summers.

And with the competition of an exhibition football game this Monday, preliminary ratings showed the final summer showing of "Fear Factor" declined from last week.

NBC, ABC and CBS were bunched together atop the ratings during another slow week. Viewers are tuning out summer reruns in numbers that are alarming television executives.

For the week, NBC averaged 8.2 million viewers (5.6 rating, 10 share), ABC averaged 7.8 million viewers (5.6, 10), CBS averaged 7.6 million (5.5, 10), Fox had 5.6 million (3.6, 7), UPN had 3.2 million (2.1, 4), the WB had 2.1 million (1.5, 3) and Pax TV had 1.3 million (0.9, 2).

NBC's "Nightly News" won the evening news ratings race with 8.8 million viewers (6.5 rating, 15 share). The "CBS Evening News" was second with 8.4 million viewers (6.2, 14), while ABC's "World News Tonight" fell to third place at the start of Peter Jennings' vacation with 8.1 million (6.2, 14).

A ratings 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 July 30-Aug. 5, the top 10 shows, their networks and ratings: "Fear Factor," NBC, 9.6; "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (Tuesday), ABC, 9.0; "Weakest Link," NBC, 8.7; "Dateline NBC" (Monday), NBC, 8.3; "60 Minutes," CBS, 8.2; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 8.0; "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (Sunday), ABC, 7.9; "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (Thursday), ABC, 7.8; "Everybody Loves Raymond," CBS, 7.6; "Dateline NBC" (Tuesday), NBC, 7.4; "Law and Order," NBC, 7.4.