Oscars Delivers Ratings Win To ABC

By Louise A. Barile

Wednesday March 27, 2002 02:57 PM EST

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Clocking in at a marathon 4 hours and 16 minutes, the Nielsen ratings indicate that though the 74th Annual Academy Awards put a lot of movie fans to sleep, it still managed to give ABC the highest rated show of the week. It's a feat the last place net has only achieved once before in 2002. Sunday's telecast was down 3% from last year, posting its lowest household ratings ever (25.4 rating, 42 share), according to preliminary Nielsen ratings as reported by Variety. And there's more bad news: this year's ceremony attracted the smallest rating among the coveted adults 18-49 demographic since the system was first introduced in 1987. But ABC estimates that some 77 million viewers tuned in to at least part of the show, up from 72.2 million last year, according to the industry paper. With an average audience of 41.8 million viewers, the Academy Awards telecast was also the fourth highest rated broadcast of the season, excluding Super Bowl post game coverage, reports Variety. Only the Super Bowl (86.8 million), the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics (45.6 million) and the Olympic's women's figure-skating long program (43.3 million) attracted more viewers. The Top 10 primetime programs for the week of March 18-24:

1. "Academy Awards,'' ABC, 26.8 million homes
2. "On the Red Carpet: Oscars 2002,'' ABC, 18.0 million homes
3. "Everybody Loves Raymond,'' CBS, 14.2 million homes
4. "Friends,'' NBC, 13.7 million homes
5. "Survivor: Marquesas,'' CBS, 13.3 million homes
6. "Barbara Walters Special,'' ABC, 12.5 million homes
7. "Becker,'' CBS, 12.1 million homes
8. "Law and Order,'' NBC, 11.7 million homes
9. "Leap of Faith,'' NBC, 10.6 million homes
10. "ER,'' NBC, 10.5 million homes