CBS Wins Ratings Sweeps for Eighth Straight Year

NEW YORK, Nov. 25 -- Thanks to another dominating week in the television ratings, CBS will win the November "sweeps" period for the eighth straight year.

At the beginning of CBS's current streak, "sweeps" months were much more important in the TV industry. Now, though, as more local markets have their viewership measured electronically all year long by Nielsen Media Research, the need for sweeps -- select months when those markets were looked at -- has receded. Networks no longer lard up their November, February and March schedules with big events to jack up ratings.

As illustrated last week, CBS is winning on the strength of its regular schedule. Of the scripted series in Nielsen's top 20 last week, nine were on CBS, two on Fox and one on ABC.

Fourth-ranked NBC's cupboard is so bare that 14 scripted series on CBS drew bigger audiences last week -- even a rerun of "The Mentalist" -- than NBC's most popular scripted series, "Law & Order: SVU."

For the fourth straight year, ABC won the November "sweeps" among the 18-to-49-year-old demographic that advertisers covet. Buoyed by an appearance by the Jonas Brothers, ABC's telecast of the American Music Awards showed year-to-year growth -- an unusual gain for awards shows.

Fox's two-hour telecast of the "24" prequel Sunday was seen by 12.1 million viewers, a solid if not spectacular showing.

For the week, CBS averaged 12 million viewers (7.6 rating, 12 share), ABC had 10.1 million viewers (6.4, 10), Fox had 8.4 million (5.1, 8), NBC, 7.1 million (4.5, 7), the CW, 2.2 million (1.5, 2), My Network TV 1.9 million (1.2, 2) and ION Television 540,000 (0.4, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision averaged 3.9 million viewers (2.0 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.4 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura, 670,000 (0.4, 1) and Azteca, 220,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.5 million viewers (6.2, 12). ABC's "World News" was second with 9.1 million (6.0, 12), and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.6 million viewers (4.5, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,145,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.5 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Nov. 17-23, here are the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 19.63 million; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 18.45 million; "NCIS," CBS, 18 million; "Dancing With the Stars (Results)," ABC, 17.59 million; "Criminal Minds," CBS, 16.33 million; "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 15.91 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 15.84 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 15.46 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 15.18 million; Sunday Night Football: Indianapolis at San Diego, NBC, 15.17 million.