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WWE and USA Wrestle With Fallout From Chris Benoit Case

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According to authorities, Benoit killed his wife Friday, his son late Saturday or early Sunday and himself some time later; his body was found hanging from the pulley of a piece of gym equipment. Ballard said it was "bizarre" that Benoit spread out the killings over a weekend.

"I'm baffled about why anybody would kill a 7-year-old," he said. "I don't think we'll ever be able to wrap our head around that."

* * *

For the first time in ages, NBC had the week's four most-watched shows, but only three racked double digits. CBS and ABC, meanwhile, suffered their smallest ratings among younger viewers since the 1980s.

Here's a look at the week's hot and cold:

WINNERS

"America's Got Talent." The NBC competition series came in first for the third week in a row, this time with an average audience of 12.5 million viewers.

"Dateline." Matt Lauer's interview with Princes William and Harry -- the one that had absolutely no connection to this Sunday's Matt Lauer-hosted NBC broadcast of the "Concert for Diana" concocted by her sons, Princes William and Harry, and for which NBC paid more than $2 million in license fees -- scored 12.2 million viewers. That was last week's second-largest audience and the biggest "Dateline" crowd in two years. During a recent phone news conference to plug the concert broadcast, Lauer insisted there was "no quid pro quo."

"Friday Night SmackDown!" For the second time in three weeks, CW's faux-wrestling show beat the major networks in its time period among the 18-to-49-year-olds they all target.

LOSERS

"Friday Night Lights." So few people are watching this show no one noticed NBC had pulled it off the lineup until its second week off the air. Three episodes were repeated, as planned, but once the series hit a 0.9 rating among young adults, NBC yanked it in favor of a "Law & Order" rerun. This does not bode well for the second-season launch of the critically adored but hardly watched series, especially now that a new guy is running NBC's entertainment division.

"Creature Comforts." After three episodes, CBS yanked its version of the U.K. stop-motion animation hit. The last episode clocked 4.2 million viewers; the "New Adventures of Old Christine" that replaced it logged 5.5 million viewers this past Monday.

The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were: NBC's "America's Got Talent," Monday "Dateline," Monday "Deal or No Deal" and "Law & Order: SVU"; CBS's "NCIS," "CSI" and "Two and a Half Men"; Fox's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" and Wednesday "So You Think You Can Dance"; and CBS's "CSI: Miami."


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