A season’s big finish

The conclusion of another “American Idol” competition and the “Lost” season finale brought more than 50 million viewers to their television sets last week on the final day of the television season.

An estimated 30.3 million people saw Carrie Underwood beat Bo Bice on Fox’s two-hour “Idol” finale, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released this week. Instead of shrinking from such withering competition, ABC’s “Lost,” which aired at the same time, averaged 20.7 million viewers.

Fox’s “House,” another in the crop of impressive freshman dramas that included “Lost,” finished with 19.5 million viewers.

Don’t expect to see those numbers again anytime soon. It’s summertime, and the network prime-time schedules in the weeks ahead feature a mix of reruns and reality shows.

CBS reality stars Rob and Amber had 9.7 million guests to their wedding special on Sunday. ABC learned the ugly flip side to having popular prime-time serials: that 7.4 million watched “Desperate Housewives” on Sunday and 5.8 million saw “Grey’s Anatomy” indicates that the shows don’t repeat well.

ABC also had one of the more unsightly sweeps performances when its made-for-TV movie on Donald Trump drew a paltry 5.6 million viewers.

Fox easily won the week, averaging 12.5 million viewers. CBS had 9.4 million viewers, NBC had 7.8 million, ABC had 7.2 million, UPN had 2.8 million, the WB had 2.5 million and Pax TV had 520,000 viewers.

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Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (May 23-29) 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 277.93 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.

*--* Program Network Viewers 1 American Idol (Wed.) FOX 30.27 2 American Idol (Tue.) FOX 28.05 3 CSI: Miami CBS 21.22 4 Lost ABC 20.71 5 House FOX 19.52

6 Law & Order: SVU NBC 16.38 7 CSI CBS 16.09 8 Law & Order: Criminal Intent NBC 14.98 9 Two and a Half Men (9:30 p.m.) CBS 14.86 10 NCIS CBS 14.74

11 Two and a Half Men CBS 14.37 12 Without a Trace CBS 13.21 13 24 FOX 12.23 14 Medium NBC 11.79 15 Las Vegas NBC 11.27

16 “FOX NASCAR Nextel Cup” FOX 10.23 17 Alias ABC 10.07 18 Still Standing (8:30 p.m.) CBS 9.83 19 Cold Case (Thu.) CBS 9.67 20 “Rob and Amber Get Married” CBS 9.66

21 “Double Jeopardy” CBS 8.54 22 Still Standing CBS 8.49 23 Dateline: NBC (Fri.) NBC 8.27 24 Fear Factor NBC 8.26 25 60 Minutes CBS 8.10

26 Contender NBC 7.98 27 48 Hours Mystery CBS 7.82 28 Cold Case (Sun.) CBS 7.79 29 20/20 (Fri.) ABC 7.71 30 Law & Order: Trial by Jury (Wed.) NBC 7.70

31 “Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution” CBS 7.46 32 Desperate Housewives ABC 7.43 33 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ABC 7.14 34 Numb3rs CBS 6.87 35 Law & Order: Trial by Jury (Fri.) NBC 6.84

36 Crimetime Saturday CBS 6.46 37 Primetime Live ABC 6.42 38 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: How’d They ABC 6.34 Do That? 39 Law & Order NBC 6.27 40 “Titanic” NBC 6.26

41 ER NBC 6.24 42 Lost (Tue.) ABC 6.23 43 60 Minutes Wednesday CBS 6.10 44 “Nick & Jessica’s Tour of Duty” ABC 6.06 45 Will & Grace (9:30 p.m.) NBC 5.94

46 Joey (8:30 p.m.) NBC 5.93 47 Will & Grace NBC 5.88 48 Grey’s Anatomy ABC 5.79 49 “The Waterboy” ABC 5.68 50 Joey NBC 5.59

51 “Trump Unauthorized” ABC 5.55 52 7th Heaven WB 5.54 53 NCIS (Sat.) CBS 5.44 54 America’s Funniest Home Videos ABC 5.37 55 America’s Most Wanted FOX 4.96

56 Cops (8:30 p.m.) FOX 4.91 57 Everwood WB 4.77 58 JAG CBS 4.69 59 WWE Smackdown! UPN 4.55 60 Desperate Housewives (Sat.) ABC 4.45

61 Girlfriends UPN 4.36 62 Cops FOX 4.35 63 “Me, Myself and Irene” FOX 4.18 64 “The Patriot” NBC 4.14 65 Lost (Sat., 8 p.m.) ABC 4.00

66 Half and Half UPN 3.98 67 Hope & Faith ABC 3.90 68 8 Simple Rules ABC 3.88 69 Joan of Arcadia CBS 3.80 70 Less Than Perfect ABC 3.72

71 One Tree Hill (Tue.) WB 3.61 72 Complete Savages ABC 3.50 73 Cuts UPN 3.39 74 One on One UPN 3.23 75 The O.C. (9 p.m.) FOX 3.11

76 The O.C. FOX 3.07 77 Britney & Kevin: Chaotic UPN 3.04 78 Eve UPN 3.00 79 “Mobile Home Disaster” WB 2.63 80 All of Us UPN 2.57

81 Reba WB 2.43 82 Blue Collar TV WB 2.34 83 Blue Collar TV (8:30 p.m.) WB 2.32 84 “Swordfish” UPN 2.07 85 Bad Girls Guide UPN 1.83

Living With Fran WB 1.83 87 Steve Harvey’s Big Time WB 1.64 88 What I Like About You (8:30 p.m.) WB 1.54 89 What I Like About You WB 1.40 90 One Tree Hill (Wed.) WB 1.33

91 Enterprise UPN 1.29 92 Charmed WB 1.20 93 One Tree Hill (Sun.) WB 0.97 94 Enterprise (9 p.m.) UPN 0.94

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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 FOX 12.51 9.98

CBS 9.42 12.84

NBC 7.78 9.72

ABC 7.21 9.97

UPN 2.82 3.35

WB 2.51 3.32

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