No fireworks over holiday

The July 4 holiday week, traditionally among the lowest-watched weeks for TV every year, stuck to custom the week ending Sunday, particularly for original shows.

Nielsen Media Research’s 10 most-watched shows for the week ending on Independence Day featured eight reruns, a NASCAR race and one new show: “The Simple Life 2.”

Even among the 18-to-49-year-old viewers that advertisers covet and most networks cater to, “CSI” and “CSI: Miami” were the two top-rated shows.

One original show that did do well, relatively, was NBC’s coverage of the Fourth of July fireworks, which beat all original scripted programs.

People even seem to prefer repeating reality. A rerun of “Fear Factor” on NBC drew more viewers than some of the network’s originals, “Last Comic Standing” or “For Love or Money.”

CBS won last week, averaging 8 million viewers. NBC had 6.5 million, Fox 4.9 million, ABC 4.7 million, UPN 2.3 million and the WB 1.9 million.

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Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (June 28-July 4) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Nielsen estimates there are 272.04 million potential viewers in the U.S. age 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.

*--* Program Network Viewers 1 CSI CBS 15.94 2 CSI: Miami CBS 13.52 3 Without a Trace CBS 13.06 4 Two and a Half Men CBS 11.39 5 Law & Order NBC 10.75 6 Everybody Loves Raymond CBS 10.74 7 Law & Order: SVU NBC 10.24 8 Without a Trace (8 p.m.) CBS 9.59 9 Simple Life 2 FOX 9.27 10 “Fox NASCAR Pepsi 400” FOX 8.72 11 Fear Factor NBC 8.65 12 48 Hours Mystery CBS 8.56 13 Navy NCIS CBS 8.52 14 60 Minutes II CBS 8.39 15 Navy NCIS (9 p.m.) CBS 8.31 16 60 Minutes CBS 8.07 17 Law & Order (9 p.m.) NBC 7.93 18 Last Comic Standing 2 NBC 7.80 19 For Love or Money 3 NBC 7.68 20 King of Queens CBS 7.66 21 Dateline NBC (Fri.) NBC 7.61 22 Primetime Thursday ABC 7.39 23 My Wife & Kids (8:30 p.m.) ABC 7.26 24 Yes, Dear CBS 7.25 25 Who Wants to Marry My Dad 2? NBC 7.01 26 “Boston Pops Fireworks” CBS 6.92 27 NYPD 24/7 ABC 6.87 28 Still Standing CBS 6.86 29 My Wife and Kids ABC 6.82 30 King of Queens CBS 6.81 31 “Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks” NBC 6.69 32 20/20 (Fri.) ABC 6.54 33 Cold Case CBS 6.49 34 Cold Case (9 p.m.) CBS 6.44 35 8 Simple Rules ABC 6.39 36 Cops FOX 6.34 37 Will & Grace NBC 6.27 38 Las Vegas NBC 6.25 39 48 Hours Investigates CBS 6.16 40 Crossing Jordan NBC 6.00 41 Method and Red (Wed.) FOX 5.98 Quintuplets FOX 5.98 43 Judging Amy CBS 5.78 Friends NBC 5.78 45 According to Jim ABC 5.58 46 Scrubs NBC 5.45 47 Will & Grace (8:30 p.m.) NBC 5.42 48 That ‘70s Show FOX 5.39 49 I’m With Her ABC 5.28 50 “Independence Day” FOX 5.25 51 JAG CBS 5.13 52 My Wife & Kids (Mon.) ABC 5.12 53 “The Patriot” CBS 5.04 54 Less Than Perfect ABC 5.03 55 Dateline NBC (Sun.) NBC 5.01 56 The Drew Carey Show (9:30 p.m.) ABC 4.99 57 ER NBC 4.97 58 Casino FOX 4.92 59 According to Jim (Mon.) ABC 4.88 Whose Line Is It Anyway? (8:30 p.m.) ABC 4.88 Whose Line Is It Anyway? ABC 4.88 62 George Lopez ABC 4.83 63 WWE Smackdown! UPN 4.69 Weddings ABC 4.69 65 The Drew Carey Show (9 p.m.) ABC 4.66 66 “General’s Daughter” NBC 4.64 Hope & Faith ABC 4.64 68 Hope & Faith (Mon.) ABC 4.55 69 Joan of Arcadia CBS 4.45 70 Life With Bonnie ABC 4.41 71 “An American Celebration at Ford’s Theatre” ABC 4.36 72 “The Legend of Bagger Vance” ABC 4.28 73 Married to the Kellys ABC 4.23 74 Crime and Punishment 3 NBC 4.21 75 George Lopez (Mon.) ABC 4.18 76 North Shore FOX 4.18 77 Next Action Star (Tue.) NBC 4.11 78 Next Action Star (Wed.) NBC 3.82 79 The Ultimate Love Test ABC 3.72 80 Bernie Mac (Tue.) FOX 3.64 81 Reba (9:30 p.m.) WB 3.45 82 Method and Red (Tue.) FOX 3.38 83 The Jury FOX 3.21 84 Method and Red (Fri.) FOX 3.05 85 Summerland WB 3.05 86 Bernie Mac (Fri.) FOX 3.03 87 Reba WB 2.92 88 7th Heaven WB 2.84 89 Wonderful World of Disney ABC 2.77 90 Half and Half UPN 2.64 91 North Shore (Thu.) FOX 2.63 92 Girlfriends UPN 2.59 93 Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital ABC 2.57 94 The Jury (Fri.) FOX 2.53 95 Eve UPN 2.36 96 Tru Calling FOX 2.30 97 Summerland (Mon.) WB 2.10 98 The Parkers UPN 1.97 99 Jamie Kennedy (9:30 p.m.) WB 1.92 100 Gilmore Girls WB 1.88 101 All of Us UPN 1.86 102 One on One UPN 1.84 103 What I Like About You WB 1.79 104 “Josie and the Pussycats” WB 1.72 105 Grounded for Life WB 1.70

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Network averages

Here is the number of viewers (in millions) that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

*--* Network Last week Season to date CBS 7.99 12.44 NBC 6.46 10.49 FOX 4.91 9.09 ABC 4.71 8.58 UPN 2.31 3.27 WB 1.90 3.46

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