• by Ken Liebeskind , October 2, 2002

The new season started out like the old ones, with CBS and NBC battling it out for the top, with most of the same top shows. Meanwhile, ABC, which enjoyed success last week by debuting new shows before the season began, fell back again, with its new drama, Push Nevada, one of last week's winners, already being considered for cancellation.

NBC's Friends was the top show for the week, drawing a 31 share/20.3 household with 34 million viewers. E.R., Frasier, Will & Grace and Scrubs also made the top 10 for NBC. CBS scored big with CSI, Everybody Loves Raymond, CSI: Miami and Everybody Loves Raymond. ABC's lone top 10 entry was Monday Night Football.

CSI:Miami is the best new show by far. Some other new entries that scored well this week were Without a Trace, Presidio Med and Hack on CBS, Good Morning Miami, Hidden Hills, American Dreams and Boomtown for NBC and My Wife and Kids and The Practice on ABC. The WB saw numbers rise with three hits: Smallville, Gilmore Girls and Everwood.

For the week, CBS led the way in prime average with a 15 share/9.1 household, followed by NBC (15/8.9), ABC (11/6.6) and Fox (7/4.5). For adults 18-49, NBC led the way with 15/5.4, followed by CBS (12/4.6), ABC (10/3.8) and Fox (9/3.1).

Cable winners for the most recent week were NFL football on ESPN, Lifetime's Prime Movie, Winston racing on TNT, NFL Prime Time on ESPN and Spongebob on Nick. The NFL scored a 5.1 household with 5.4 million households watching.

Syndicated leaders were the NFL on ESPN, Wheel of Fortune, Friends, Jeopardy and Everybody Loves Raymond with the NFL scoring a 7.8 household with 8.3 million households.

Football continues to win all the top sports slots with Fox NFL, MNF on ABC, the NFL on CBS and college football on ABC leading. Sunday football on Fox scored a 26 share/12.4 household with 13 million households and 18 million people tuned in.

In other TV news, CBS and Survivor Productions are taking action against ABC for its planned running of a British reality series, I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! that is purportedly a Survivor knock-off. A cease and desist letter was sent Sept. 25.. ABC planned 15 one hour episodes during the February 2003 sweeps. A lawsuit may follow, similar to the one CBS levied on Fox last year for its Celebrity Boot Camp series. It was settled out of court.