• by Paul Gough , April 22, 2003

Led by a strong showing by Friends and the rest of the Thursday night comedies and good ratings for the Law & Order franchise, NBC won the week in total households and tied Fox for adults 18-49. The data was released Tuesday afternoon by Nielsen Media Research for the primetime week ended Sunday.

NBC's 7.5/13 total-household delivery put it ahead of CBS (6.7/11), which has won many of the weekly total household races in the 30 weeks of the season since September. Fox (5.2/9) came in third just ahead of ABC (5/9) and well ahead of The WB (2.2/4), UPN (2/3) and Pax (0.7/1). CBS still remains in the season-to-date lead with a delivery of 8.2/13 to NBC's 7.7/13, ABC's 6.4/10 and Fox's 6/10. The other three networks are well behind in the total-household demographic although The WB, in particular, doesn't compete in the over-34 demographic.

In adults 18-49, NBC's performance (3.8/11) tied it with Fox, which won the February sweeps in the demo and has been competing almost neck-and-neck with NBC for much of the season on the strength of shows like Joe Millionaire and American Idol. ABC (2.9/9) came in third and CBS (2.7/8) came in fourth. Season-to-date, NBC (4.5/12) is slightly ahead of Fox (4.2/11), CBS (3.9/10) and ABC (3.8/10).

The top 10 programs for the week of April 14-20:

1. CSI (CBS), 12.4/20.

2. Friends (NBC), 12/21.

3. American Idol - Tuesday (Fox), 11.9/19.

4. Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS), 11.6/18.

5. American Idol - Wednesday (Fox), 11/18.

6. Law & Order April 17 Special (NBC), 10.5/18.

7. CSI: Miami (CBS), 10.3/17.

8. Will & Grace (NBC), 10/16.

9. Scrubs (NBC), 9.9/16.

10. Law & Order: SVU (NBC), 9.6/18.