'Raymond' Survives Olympic Onslaught

By Stephen M. Silverman

02/27/2002 at 04:53 PM EST

Two nights of women's figure skating and Sunday's closing ceremonies brought home the gold to NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics, nearly tripling the network's audience during the same week a year ago and beating the combined prime-time viewing of CBS, FOX and ABC by more than 9 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Though the games monopolized the ratings race, CBS had the remaining two shows in the top 10, led by a rerun of "Everybody Loves Raymond" (at No. 9). Not making the Top 10 list was ABC's highest-rated show, a special episode of "NYPD Blue," which tied for No. 13 with another rerun of "Everybody Loves Raymond." The top-rated FOX show was "The Simpsons" (No. 15); the top-rated WB show was a rerun of "7th Heaven" (No. 74); the top-rated UPN show was its Friday showing of "Lethal Weapon 3," which tied for No. 79 with the WB's "Dawson's Creek." The highest ranked shows for the week of Feb. 18-24, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. "Winter Olympics," Thursday, NBC, 28.2 million homes
2. (tie) "Winter Olympics," Closing Ceremonies, NBC, 23.5 million homes
2. (tie) "Winter Olympics," Tuesday, NBC, 23.6 million homes
4. "Winter Olympics," Wednesday, NBC, 20.6 million homes
5. "Winter Olympics," Friday, NBC, 18.7 million homes
6. "Winter Olympics," Monday, NBC, 18.1 million homes
7. "Winter Olympics," Saturday, NBC, 16.5 million homes
8. "Dateline NBC," Sunday, NBC, 13.0 million homes
9. "Everybody Loves Raymond," CBS, 9.7 million homes
10. "60 Minutes," CBS, 9.2 million homes