CBS Can Take Stock in These Numbers

"Knight Rider." NBC buys four more scripts -- not as good as four more episodes, but it's something.

"I Survived a Japanese Game Show." ABC buys a second season for next summer. Don't ask why, just watch and God bless America.

"WWE Friday Night SmackDown" copped 3.4 million viewers, the biggest audience in MyNetwork TV's history.

LOSERS

CW Sunday. When the dust settled, the second outing of CW's Outsourced Sunday coughed up only 848,000 viewers, 22 percent below the netlet's lame Sunday lineup's draw last season.

"Heroes" hit a series low for the second consecutive week, according to Nielsen stats. That said, it's among the more DVR'd series and we won't know for a couple more weeks how many more people watched the episode up to a week later -- Nielsen's "Live + 7" being the new "Live."

NASCAR. ABC's Saturday "[Bank] 500" broadcast limped in with just 6 million viewers, the smallest prime-time NASCAR audience in at least eight years.

"Macy's Passport Celebrity Catwalk Challenge." NBC's Saturday infomercial-posing-as-programming, featuring The Stars of NBC Universal 2.0, fooled only 2 million people. That's 42 percent fewer viewers than a "Knight Rider" repeat scored in the same time slot the previous Saturday.

The week's 10 most watched programs: CBS's "CSI"; ABC's "Dancing With the Stars"; CBS's "NCIS," "Criminal Minds" and "CSI: NY"; ABC's "Desperate Housewives," "Dancing" results show and "Grey's Anatomy"; and CBS's "Two and a Half Men" and "CSI: Miami."

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HBO Films President Colin Callender has left the building, ending months of speculation he would leave after not getting the gig to replace Chris Albrecht as top dog.

Ironically, Callender is leaving less than a month after racking up a record 13 Primetime Emmy wins with the "John Adams" miniseries and another three for "Recount."

Callender's impressive roster of projects also includes "Angels in America," "Elizabeth" and "Lackawanna Blues."

The Time Warner-owned pay-cable network said Callender "has decided to leave his post . . . to launch a new entertainment and content company, the details of which will be announced in 2009." Brrrrr!

In yesterday's announcement, Callender is quoted as saying, "This past year at HBO Films has been nothing less than extraordinary, and it's the perfect time for me to move on to a new challenge.

"My career has been shaped by one constant in this industry -- change," said the man who has been with HBO for 20 years.

Callender is the third high-ranking HBO exec to exit in recent months. At any other TV network this would barely be news. But this kind of turnover is unheard of at HBO, which has always been cultlike in the whole no-one-ever-leaves category. Seven months ago Carolyn Strauss was removed as president of the entertainment division, 10 months after her mentor, CEO Albrecht, was shown the door after being arrested on suspicion of smacking around his girlfriend in a Vegas casino parking lot.

Callender, like Albrecht, is being replaced from within the company. HBO said yesterday it is divvying up his job between his top lieutenants Kary Antholis and Len Amato; Antholis becomes president of HBO miniseries and Amato president of HBO Films.