AMA RATINGS MAKE
DICK A HAPPY CAMPER

He may have had to put on a dress to boost the ratings, but Dick Clark has to be satisfied with the preliminary overnight figures for this year's American Music Awards extravaganza, as the show won the evening for its target 18-49 audience.

While ABC ended up taking second place to NBC for the night, the American Music Awards garnered its highest Adult 18-49 audience share and tied its highest rating over the last four years with a 7.3/18. The AMAs' overall 9.9/16 mark, with an average 16 million viewers per half-hour, represented less than a 5% drop from last year's 10.4/16.

"Believe me, Dick is not unhappy," said the show's spokesperson Paul Schefrin, explaining that last year's show was on a Monday night, and didn't have to go up against a programming line-up which included NBC's West Wing and Law & Order, and CBS' Michael Jackson: 30^th Anniversary Special. The showing enabled ABC to grab a leading 26% of the 18-49 Adult demo, losing that audience group only in the final half-hour of the evening.

In fact, the AMAs edged out Jacko for the hour from 10-11 p.m., with a 9.3/16 to the latter's 8.7/15. The award show took the 8-9 p.m. hour with a 9.9/16, besting CBS' 60 Minutes II (7.6.12) and NBC's Ed (7.1/12). After that, NBC's West Wing overtook it for the 9-10 p.m. hour (12.1/19 to 10.6/16) and the network's Law & Order topped it 10-11 p.m. (13.3/22 to 9.3/16).

The AMAs also did a 7.2/20 18-34, 5.9/20 12-17 and 3.5/15 for 2-11.