"Survivor: The Australian Outback" continues to soar on CBS, while NBC is having a bit of trouble with its XFL football franchise, with last week's game scoring what is believed to be the lowest-ever primetime night among the big three networks in Nielsen Media Research history, say the ratings people. As a result, note industry observers, NBC finished third in the ratings for the week of March 12-18. NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker told reporters Tuesday that he didn't expect that the XFL would be yanked before season's end (there are five more games to go), but beyond that would not comment on the future of the franchise. Originally, NBC had plans to bring XFL back next year. As for last week's Top 10 (The rating is the percentage of the nation's estimated 102.2 million TV homes. Each ratings point represents 1,022,000 households):
1. "Survivor: The Australian Outback," CBS, 16.6, 17.0 million homes
2. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," Sunday, ABC, 14.1, 14.4 million homes
3. "Friends," NBC, 13.9, 14.2 million homes
4. (tie) "Law and Order," NBC, 12.8, 13.1 million homes
4. (tie) "The Practice," ABC, 12.8, 13.1 million homes
6. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," Tuesday," ABC, 12.2, 12.4 million homes
7. "The West Wing," NBC, 11.8, 12.0 million homes
8. "Will & Grace," NBC, 11.6, 11.9 million homes
9. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," Thursday, ABC, 11.5, 11.7 million homes.
10. "Everybody Loves Raymond," CBS, 11.3, 11.5 million homes.