all of the commercial networks were airing drama series. At 9 p.m., Prime Time News had to compete with popular sitcoms such as Cheers, Frasier, Seinfeld and Murphy Brown. As a result, Prime Time News rapidly dropped off in the ratings, seeing a 12 per cent viewership decline after its first week alone; by the end of the first month ratings were lower than The National. CTV National News concurrently saw its ratings jump 40 per cent, overtaking the CBC in national newscast ratings for the first time in its history, and CBC Newsworld's edition of The National saw viewership gains of 30 per cent over that network's prior prime time lineup, and itself sometimes garnered higher ratings than Prime Time News. The shift also resulted in significant ratings declines for several other programs, including Man Alive and The Nature of Things, whose timeslots had been shifted to accommodate the new program. Format revisions In the fall of 1994, Prime Time News returned to the 10 p.m. time slot, and to a format closer to the old National and Journal. Mansbridge again became the sole anchor of the news portion of the show, and Wallin became the host of a magazine segment very similar to The Journal. However, the show retained the name Prime Time News for the 1994–1995 television season, and Wallin sometimes appeared as substitute anchor of the main news portion when Mansbridge was absent. Ratings recovered significantly following this shift; by December, the show was regularly drawing fully 95 per cent of The National's former audience. In April 1995, Wallin was dropped from the program, and was succeeded by Hana Gartner in June. In the fall the newscast officially reverted to the name The National, while the magazine segment became The National Magazine. This format remained in place until The National'' was again re-launched as a one-hour newscast in early 2001. References 1990s Canadian television news shows CBC Television original programming 1992 Canadian television series debuts 1995 Canadian television series endings CBC News