CBS Holds the Key to a Lock on the Ratings Race

CW Outsourced Sunday. CWOS logged just 692,000 viewers in its most recent outing. That's the network's smallest crowd since Super Bowl Sunday, when CW averaged 620,000 viewers in prime time. The network did better Sunday numbers over the summer with third- and fourth-run repeats. The last week before Outsourced Sunday debuted, for instance, CW logged 1.35 million viewers -- almost double this most recent performance -- with reruns of "One Tree Hill," "Privileged" and "Top Model."

"Life on Mars." Viewers sampled ABC's time-travel drama with its all-star cast and walked away, causing it to plunge from its premiere audience of 11.3 million to 8.2 million in its second outing.

"Opportunity Knocks." And then, it doesn't. Lousy ratings got this reality series yanked. This week, ABC aired a "Dancing With the Stars" recap in the time slot; next week, Charlie Brown's Halloween special.

The week's 10 most watched shows, in order, were: CBS's "CSI" and "NCIS"; ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" and "Desperate Housewives"; CBS's "The Mentalist"; ABC's "Dancing" results show and "Grey's Anatomy"; CBS's "Two and a Half Men" and "60 Minutes"; and TBS's ALCS Game 7.

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Nickelodeon has declared Democrat Barack Obama the winner of its 2008 Kids Pick the President online ballot. A record 2.2 million votes were cast in what the cable network noted is not a scientific poll. Indeed, it's not even a poll, what with no way to prevent people from voting more than once -- kind of like "American Idol" -- and no methodology to make sure those voting are really kids.

Even so, the news media, as usual, made much of the fact that in this year's Nickelodeon faux whatever-it-is, Obama received 51 percent of the vote and Republican John McCain 49 percent. And Nickelodeon noted it has held a "Kids' Vote" every election year since 1988, and the results have correctly predicted the winner in four out of those five U.S. presidential campaigns. Last time, the voters picked John Kerry.

"Nick News" host Linda Ellerbee put out a statement yesterday saying, "It's important to take note of who won the 'Kids' Vote,' simply because so many kids vote the way their parents will."

"But," she added, "what really counts is this: They participated in democracy. They voted. How can this be anything but good?"

We'll take a pass on that.