'Talent' is tops in the ratings

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Aug 2, 2008 | by Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Reality shows, newsmagazines and reruns of scripted series dominated prime-time schedules last week, so that's what viewers watched.

NBC's "America's Got Talent" took first place, followed by ABC's new unscripted hit "Wipeout." A repeat of the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" was third, then, also on CBS, "60 Minutes."

And so it went.

One rare first-run episodic series has gotten a warm reception: CBS's crime drama "Flashpoint" ranked 18th. Another CBS summer drama, "Swingtown," hasn't shown much swing. It ranked 59th after getting relegated to a Friday time slot.

For the week, CBS averaged 6.10 million viewers (4.1 household rating, 7 share). Runner-up Fox had 5.53 million viewers (3.5 rating, 6 share), while NBC had 5.39 million viewers (also 3.5 rating, 6 share), ABC 4.33 million viewers (2.8 rating, 5 share), the CW 1.56 million viewers (1.0 rating, 2 share), My Network TV with 1.07 million viewers (0.7 rating, 1 share) and ION Television 370,000 viewers (0.2 rating, 0 share), according to Nielsen Media Research.

Among the Spanish-language channels, Univision led with 3.32 million viewers (1.7 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.27 million viewers (0.7 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura 440,000 viewers (0.2 rating, 0 share) and Azteca 110,000 viewers (0.1 rating, 0 share).

In the evening news race, NBC's "Nightly News" pulled ahead, averaging 7.31 million viewers, while ABC's "World News" had 7.17 million viewers (both 5 rating, 11 share). "CBS Evening News" had 5.60 million viewers (3.9 rating, 8 share).

A ratings point represents 1,128,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 112.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of July 21-27, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "America's Got Talent," NBC, 13.24 million; "Wipeout," ABC, 9.99 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 9.76 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 9.52 million; "So You Think You Can Dance" (Wednesday), Fox, 8.60 million; "NCIS," CBS, 8.52 million; "Criminal Minds," CBS, 8.44 million; "So You Think You Can Dance" (Thursday), Fox, 8.38 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 8.13 million; "House," Fox, 7.90 million.