ETW's Long Winning Streak

Paramount's Entertainment Tonight Weekend lengthened its run as the No. 1 syndicated weekly hour. It has been the top weekly hour now for 10 consecutive sweeps periods.

According to February-sweeps results, ET Weekend's 4.0 national Nielsen rating in households was 60% ahead of its nearest competitor and up 5% over last February. And a 2.0 in adults 18-49 makes it No. 1 in the key demographic, a 25% improvement from last year.

Tied for second place were Twentieth Television's off-net The Practice
and The X-Files, each with a 2.5 in households and a 1.4 in adults 18-49. The Practice
was up 4% from last year in households and flat in the demo. X-Files
was down 11% and 26%, respectively.

No. 3 MGM's Stargate SG-1
was close behind, its 2.4 in households off 14%. Tribune's Mutant X
and Twentieth's World's Wildest Police Videos
tied for fourth place, at 2.3 in households, and each was down 8%. In adults 18-49, Police Videos
was second, its 1.5 down 6%; Mutant X
tied with The Practice, X-Files
and Tribune's Andromeda
at 1.4, down 18%.

Andromeda
tied with Warner Bros.'ER
for fifth place in households with a 2.2. That brought Andromeda
, last year's No. 2 finisher, down 27% in households and 33% in adults 18-49. ER
was down 4% in households and, at 1.3, off 7% in the demo.

Tied for sixth place were Tribune's Adventure, Inc.
and Twentieth's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, rounding out the top 10 weekly shows. Each show had a 2.1 in households, with Buffy
off 19% from a year ago. Buffy
jumped to second place in adults 18-49 with a 1.4, an 18% decline from last year. Its numbers illustrate how young that show's audience still skews, even after being in syndication for a few years. Rookie Adventure Inc.
scored a 1.2 in adults 18-49.

Among the other rookie weekly hours, NBC Enterprises'She Spies
wound up in 11th place with a 1.9 rating in households and a 1.1 in the demo. NBC's Providence
was No. 15 with a 1.6 and a 0.8, respectively. And Western International's Starhunter
landed in at No. 27 place (out of 27) with a 0.6 in households and a 0.4 in the key adult demo.

Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.