Garland Ratings over Rainbow

By Stephen M. Silverman

Monday May 11, 1998 12:00 AM EDT

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Sunday and Monday's "Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows," an ABC two-part network movie, reversed the slow fade-to-black trend of the genre by turning out to be the best-rated movie on any network this season. The first part reached more than 20 million viewers, according to Nielsen and The New York Times, and beat the numbers for "Titanic," which was shown on NBC. (Part II, however, saw a 30% drop off in the numbers.) The movie followed the tragic life of MGM supestar Judy Garland (1922-69), still most fondly remembered for playing Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard of Oz," itself still a Nielsen winner. (The rating is the percentage of the nation's estimated 102.2 million TV homes. Each ratings point represents 1,022,000 households.) Nielsen's Top 10 for the week of Feb. 19-25:

1. "ER," NBC, 17.9, 18.3 million homes
2. (tie) "43rd Annual Grammy Awards," CBS, 16.7, 17.1 million homes
2. (tie) "Survivor: The Australian Outback," CBS, 16.7, 17.0 million homes
4. Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (Part I)," ABC, 13.8, 14.1 million homes
5. "Friends," NBC, 13.7, 14.0 million homes
6. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 13.1, 13.4 million homes
7. "60 Minutes," CBS, 12.8, 13.1 million homes
8. "Law and Order," NBC, 12.6, 13.0 million homes
9. "Will and Grace," NBC, 12.1, 12.4 million homes
10. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," Wednesday," ABC, 12.0, 12.3 million homes