NBC Pins Its Hopes on Phelps and His Olympics Cohorts, and They Deliver -- Big Time

Opposite NBC's Michael Phelps-fueled coverage of the Beijing Games, ABC, CBS and Fox all hit their lowest ratings in about two decades last week.

Here's a look at the week's gold and tin:

WINNERS

NBC. Prime-time coverage of the Beijing Summer Olympics clocked nearly 30 million viewers. CBS, No. 2, dragged laps behind NBC with about 5 million. That's the biggest weekly margin of victory for any network in more than 20 years. And, it turns out, a broadcast network can cop a crowd on a Saturday night, so long as it's showing Michael Phelps helping the U.S. swim team to a first-place finish in the 400-meter medley relay in record time, to score Phelps's 14th gold medal of his career and his eighth in Beijing. For that, NBC was rewarded with a Saturday audience also of nearly 30 million viewers -- its biggest haul on the night in 18 years.

"Saddleback Showdown." While NBC was logging its biggest Saturday crowd in nearly two decades, Fox News Channel handily won the Saturday Saddleback Smackdown among the cable news networks covering televangelist Rick Warren grilling the two presidential candidates from his Saddleback Church in Southern California. FNC's coverage, Yosemite-Sam-ishly titled "Saddleback Showdown," copped nearly 3 million viewers from 8 to 10 p.m., beating ABC and CBS. Fewer than 2 million were attracted to the gag-inducingly named "Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion" on CNN, leaving just 840,000 to take their medicine in the form of MSNBC's "Saddleback Civil Forum."

LOSERS

"The American Mall." MTV's attempt to rip off "High School Musical" with a treacle flick about a perky girl named Ally who wants to make music and save Mom's piano store from the mall owner's evil daughter, Madison, fell on its fanny when only 436,000 checked out the premiere telecast.

"Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget." Cable network's roast of blue-man Saget logged 3 million viewers in the teeth of the Games -- the franchise's smallest audience since '02 when it was put on by the New York Friars Club and Chevy Chase was the victim. Franchise king remains Jeff Foxworthy, whose '05 roast logged more than 6 million viewers, followed by Pam Anderson's haul of more than 4 mil that same year.

The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were NBC's Olympics coverage on Tuesday, Saturday, Monday, Thursday, Wednesday, Sunday and Friday; and CBS's "Two and a Half Men," "NCIS" and "60 Minutes."