Audience

The early-morning audience for the funeral of Pope John Paul II Friday was three times as large as that of regularly scheduled programming on the all-news cable channels, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen Media Research. But the overall size of the audience for the much-talked-about event won't be known for at least another day, according to Nielsen and network spokesmen. From 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. Friday, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC were collectively seen by an average of more than 2 million viewers each hour.

Garth Brooks is not the likeliest-looking pop idol.At a time when most male country stars are lean, tan and hunky, Brooks is pale, round-faced and pudgy, looking more like the Pillsbury Doughboy than a cowboy pin-up.But you wouldn't know it by the way his audience reacts.Last night at the Capital Centre, Brooks was on the receiving end of audience adulation all night.It wasn't just the usual screams and cheers, either; he spent as much time shaking hands, accepting presents and returning waves as he did singing and playing.

Every now and then, we hear of singers who can move a audience to tears or bring a crowd to its feet. But what of a singer whose performance is so commanding that it actually induces a state of ecstasy among listeners -- even those who can't understand a word he sings?Sounds incredible, doesn't it? Yet that's typical of the kind of response Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan engenders. In fact, the 45-year-old Pakistani has become a legend among world-music enthusiasts, inciting such fervor among listeners around the globe.

CBS coverage of the Olympics was a hit with Baltimore area viewers. But WBAL-TV (Channel 11), the local CBS affiliate, wasn't able to do much with the huge prime-time audience the network delivered.That's the picture of TV viewing patterns in Baltimore during the important February "sweeps" ratings period, which emerges with the release of advance audience measurements from A. C. Nielsen yesterday.On average, TV sets in about 184,000 area homes were tuned to Channel 11 during prime time (from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.)

Maybe viewers just want to see whether Democratic candidate Jerry Brown can get his toll-free campaign contribution number past the ever-vigilant anchors.Despite a less animated campaign than in 1988, the networks' Super Tuesday election-results audience was the same this year as four years ago, good news for the networks in a time when ratings seem always to go lower year-to-year.It was still a small viewership, overall, however. CBS' 9 p.m. election special Tuesday averaged a 6.0 rating (percentage of the nation's 92.1 million TV households)

What: "Lawd Ha' Mercy!!"Where: Lyric Opera House, 140 W. Mount ROyal Ave.When: Tonight through Sunday at 8 p.m., matinees Saturdays and Sunday at 3 p.m.Tickets: $11.50-$25.50Call: (410) 481-7328"Lawd Ha' Mercy!!" is the latest in a wave of gospel musicals achieving popularity across the country for reasons that seem to have more to do with rafter-raising spirituals and overt religious messages than polished stagecraft.Like most of its predecessors, "Lawd" -- running through Sunday at the Lyric Opera House -- tells the story of a character who forsakes her church upbringing for wicked worldly pleasures, then finds her way back to God in the end.But in this show -- written, directed and produced by Morgan State alum David E. Talbert -- something different happens immediately following the piously-ever-after ending.

Los Angeles---Americans are tuning to news programs in near-record numbers for information on the Gulf crisis. And the audience is growing.That's the early word from Nielsen ratings for late last week and early this week. The figures show that:*Since Friday, CNN's audience has been more than twice as large as normal on a full 24-hour cycle. Furthermore, peak viewing has topped some of the record audiences garnered by CNN in the aftermath of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August.The all-news cable channel achieved one of its largest audiences ever Saturday afternoon during President Bush's press conference following the vote in Congress backing use of force.

Although Itzhak Perlman routinely sells out the most prestigious concert halls in the world, he always still finds time for worthy causes.In that spirit, he's giving a violin recital on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Beth Tfiloh Congregation in Pikesville as a benefit for the Beth Tfiloh Community School Scholarship Fund.Accompanied by pianist Samuel Sanders, Mr. Perlman says he'll play a program that includes sonatas by Brahms and Saint-Saens, as well as "some transcriptions by Jascha Heifetz in a sort of homage to Heifetz.

NEW YORK -- NBC won an increasingly tight contest in November between the three major broadcast networks for leadership in prime time. But it led ABC and CBS by just one-tenth of a ratings point, underscoring the inability of all three networks to stem audience attrition and develop new hit programs this season.Total network viewership during the sweeps in November, one of four months when ratings are used to determine local advertising rates, was down 3 percent, to 63 percent from 66 percent last year, according to statistics gathered by the A.C. Nielsen Co. and distributed recently by ABC, CBS, and NBC. For the season that began on Sept.

Sunday's Super Bowl was the most viewed show in U.S. television history, according to Nielsen figures provided by CBS. A total audience of 164.1 million saw the Ravens victory over the San Francisco 49ers. The average audience for Sunday's game was 108.4 million viewers, which was the third largest average audience behind the last two Super Bowls. Total viewership is generally considered the benchmark figure. Here's the CBS release: The 2012 NFL season concluded with another television milestone as Super Bowl XLVII on CBS reached a total audience of 164.1 million viewers (6:32-8:41 and 9:11-10:47 PM, ET)