'Singing Bee' Is Top Karaoke Show, and Week's Winner

Round 1 of the dueling karaoke-based reality shows goes to NBC.

The July 10 premiere of "The Singing Bee," the Joey Fatone-hosted game show in which contestants are challenged to finish the lyrics of popular songs, was the week's top watched program, with 13.3 million viewers.

"Bee" broke out of the summer doldrums with the largest audience in six weeks, since "House's" season finale in May. NBC also noted that it was the most watched unscripted-series debut among the important 18-to-49-year-old demographic since the January 2004 premiere of "The Apprentice."

Meanwhile, Fox's "Don't Forget the Lyrics!," the Wayne Brady-hosted game show in which contestants are also challenged to finish the lyrics of popular songs, pulled in 8.3 million viewers last Wednesday. The next night it rang up about 100,000 more viewers.

Despite losing that battle, Fox won last week's Nielsens war among total viewers, its first win of the summer. The network was led by baseball's annual All-Star Game from San Francisco on Tuesday, even though with 12.5 million viewers it was the second-least-watched All-Star Game in history, compared with 2005's 12.3 million viewers.

In the meantime, has CBS's "Pirate Masters" walked the plank? Debuting last week in its new Tuesday 10 p.m. time slot to make room for "Big Brother 8," the reality show hit a season low of 4.6 million viewers.

And after only four weeks on the air, the NBC reality romance show "Age of Love" is beginning to show its age. Its audience of 4.7 million on Monday was its smallest to date.

Lifetime was cable's most watched network Sunday night as the debuts of "Side Order of Life" and "State of Mind" drew 2.4 million and 2.3 million viewers, respectively. "Army Wives" capped the night with 3.7 million viewers.

The SoapNet network scored its highest audience ever Thursday with the debut of "General Hospital: Night Shift," which attracted 1 million viewers.

The week's top 10 programs, in order, were: NBC's "The Singing Bee"; Fox's All-Star Game; NBC's Tuesday "America's Got Talent"; Fox's Thursday "So You Think You Can Dance"; CBS's "NCIS," "CSI" and "CSI: N.Y."; Fox's All-Star Game pre-game show; CBS's "Two and a Half Men"; and NBC's "Law & Order: SVU."