Fox, ABC tied for season

A ninth-straight weekly victory moved Fox into a tie with ABC for the season-long lead among the much-coveted viewers ages 18 to 49, figures released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research showed.

In a week when ABC, CBS and NBC had reruns of many of their most-watched programs, Fox swept the top three spots both among viewers ages 18 to 49 and all viewers with Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s “American Idol” broadcasts and the medical drama “House.”

The trend of diminishing viewership for beauty pageants continued with the Miss USA Pageant on NBC, which attracted 7.75 million viewers, the second-lowest since 1974, when figures started being kept.

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Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (April 17-23) 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 (Tue.) FOX 28.44 2 American Idol (Wed.) FOX 27.63 3 House FOX 22.64 4 CSI CBS 18.88 5 Without a Trace CBS 16.93

6 CSI: Miami CBS 16.33 7 Survivor: Panama, Exile Island CBS 16.26 8 NCIS CBS 15.90 9 Desperate Housewives ABC 15.72 10 The Unit CBS 15.62

11 Deal or No Deal (Mon.) NBC 15.32 12 CSI: NY CBS 15.14 13 Grey’s Anatomy ABC 14.56 14 Criminal Minds (Wed.) CBS 13.53 15 24 FOX 13.26

16 Unan1mous FOX 13.24 17 Cold Case CBS 12.53 18 Numb3rs CBS 12.09 19 Two and a Half Men CBS 11.93 20 Crossing Jordan NBC 11.48

21 60 Minutes CBS 11.42 22 Old Christine CBS 11.38 23 Criminal Minds (Tue.) CBS 11.17 24 Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Sun.) NBC 11.13 25 Medium NBC 10.76

26 “In From the Night” CBS 10.52 27 Bones FOX 10.28 28 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ABC 9.51 29 Close to Home CBS 9.06 30 Supernanny ABC 8.99

31 Boston Legal ABC 8.79 32 Law & Order: SVU NBC 8.75 Amazing Race 9 CBS 8.75 34 American Inventor (9 p.m.) ABC 8.46 35 The West Wing NBC 8.42

36 Deal or No Deal (Fri.) NBC 8.23 37 “Celebrity Cooking Showdown” (Mon.) NBC 8.18 38 Prison Break FOX 8.17 39 Primetime ABC 8.05 40 America’s Funniest Home Videos (Sun.) ABC 8.00

41 Family Guy FOX 7.91 42 Law & Order NBC 7.90 43 Ghost Whisperer CBS 7.84 44 “Miss USA 2006” NBC 7.75 45 My Name Is Earl (9 p.m.) NBC 7.73

46 Commander in Chief ABC 7.69 47 “NASCAR Nextel Cup” (8:30 p.m.) FOX 7.50 48 Alias ABC 7.49 49 American Dad FOX 7.34 50 King of Queens CBS 7.25

51 What About Brian ABC 7.13 52 Invasion ABC 7.11 53 The Simpsons FOX 7.10 54 How I Met Your Mother CBS 7.05 55 America’s Funniest Home Videos (Fri.) ABC 6.70

56 War at Home FOX 6.68 57 “Something’s Gotta Give” CBS 6.60 58 48 Hours Mystery CBS 6.49 59 20/20 ABC 6.43 60 Wife Swap ABC 6.40

61 “Pretty Woman” ABC 6.24 62 ER NBC 6.20 63 Office NBC 6.09 64 Scrubs NBC 5.72 65 American Inventor (8 p.m.) ABC 5.58

66 Hope & Faith ABC 5.43 67 The O.C. FOX 5.36 68 Alborada (Fri.) UNI 5.32 69 Alborada (Thu.) UNI 5.31 70 Dateline: NBC (Sun.) NBC 5.24

71 “NASCAR Nextel Cup” (8 p.m.) FOX 5.17 72 Will & Grace NBC 4.99 Alborada (Tue.) UNI 4.99 74 7th Heaven WB 4.85 75 Celebrity Cooking Showdown (Wed.) NBC 4.84

76 My Name Is Earl (8:30 p.m.) NBC 4.81 77 Alborada (Wed.) UNI 4.75 78 Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Sat.) NBC 4.63 79 Alborada (Mon.) UNI 4.59 80 Cristina (Fri.) UNI 4.57

81 According to Jim ABC 4.51 Less Than Perfect ABC 4.51 83 Teachers NBC 4.50 84 Smallville WB 4.40 85 America’s Next Top Model 6 (Wed.) UPN 4.36

86 Bailando por un Sueno Sun UNI 4.35 87 Gilmore Girls WB 4.30 88 That ‘70s Show (8:30 p.m.) FOX 4.26 89 Hope & Faith ABC 4.11 90 Supernatural WB 3.99

91 That ‘70s Show (8 p.m.) FOX 3.93 92 Aqui y Ahora (Thu.) UNI 3.89 93 Heist NBC 3.84 94 Everwood WB 3.82 95 Everybody Hates Chris UPN 3.69

96 King of the Hill FOX 3.66 97 WWE Smackdown! UPN 3.55 98 Girlfriends UPN 3.54 99 Barrera de Amor (Mon.) UNI 3.45 100 Charmed WB 3.39

101 Cristina (Mon.) UNI 3.35 102 Celebrity Cooking Showdown (Tue.) NBC 3.31 103 Half and Half UPN 3.28 104 Don Francisco Presenta UNI 3.27 105 Barrera de Amor (Wed.) UNI 3.12

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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 11.85 12.57

FOX 9.84 9.77

ABC 7.88 11.00

NBC 7.10 9.75

UNI 3.68 3.90

WB 2.99 3.15

UPN 2.86 3.16

TEL 0.76 0.97

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