• by Ken Liebeskind , February 6, 2002

The Super Bowl may have been mediocre in terms of audience variables, but it made Fox the top network for the week by far.

The latest Nielsen ratings show Fox had a 21 share and 13.2 household rating for the week, far surpassing the other networks (NBC was second at 13/8.3 followed by CBS and ABC).

The Super Bowl attracted 86.8 million viewers and scored a 32.2 rating and a 64 share. It was the top show of the week with the Super Bowl post game show ranked second, with 50 million viewers, an 18.4 rating and a 41 share.

Compare those numbers to the other top shows, such as NBC's Friends, which ranked third with 28 million viewers, a 10.6 rating and a 26 share. Not bad, except when compared with the Super Bowl.

Other winners for the week were E.R., CSI and Malcolm in the Middle. A special episode of Malcolm ran after the Super Bowl, but since it started at nearly 11:00 EST it didn't get the numbers Fox hoped for (23 million viewers/7.9 rating/23 share).

The most recent week's leading cable shows were Lifetime's Prime Movie Video Voyeur, WWF Entertainment (TNN), Spongebob (NIC) and Blue Planet (DISC). Household ratings for the shows ranged from 4.1 to 2.9.