Election-Night Ratings Decline

NEW YORK — Election-night ratings for the three major networks were 12% lower than for the 1984 presidential election, a CBS executive said Thursday.

Part of the drop, said CBS research vice president Michael Eisenberg, was attributable to the continued decline of network audiences in general, due to increased competition from cable and independent television stations.

CNN, for example, said Thursday that its election-night coverage was seen in about 801,000 homes.

The other factor, Eisenberg said, was that independent stations did some “pretty serious” counter-programming Tuesday night, putting top movies and specials up against the networks’ election coverage.

Although NBC was the last of the major networks to call George Bush the winner in Tuesday’s election, it wound up first in the election-night ratings compiled by the A.C. Nielsen Co.

ABC, which had held the lead in the overnight ratings released Wednesday, was edged out in the nationals by a narrow margin, with NBC getting an average prime-time rating of 11.7. ABC registered an 11.5 and CBS trailed with a 10. Each ratings point represents 904,000 homes.