Nielsen closed the books on the 2007-08 broadcast season Wednesday by releasing
a list showing how each of the major networks' regular programs fared. Not
surprisingly, the top of the list was dominated by the two weekly American
Idol telecasts on Fox and the weekly Dancing With the Stars
telecasts on ABC that aired on four different nights during the season.
Four scripted shows also made it into the top ten: ABC's Desperate
Housewives at No. 6; Fox's House at No. 8; CBS's CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation at No. 9; and Grey's Anatomy at Number 10. Overall,
Fox wound up as the top-rated network for the season, thanks mostly to its
American Idol numbers, which averaged 28.75 million on Tuesday nights
(No. 1) and 27.78 million on Wednesdays (No. 2). CBS slipped to second place
after holding the top spot for the previous five years. Fox was also the only
network to improve its ratings this year compared with last year. "What
catapulted them is probably that they were the least harmed from the writers
strike,'' Brad Adgate, research director at Horizon Media told Bloomberg News.
"They had a lot of unscripted shows that were not as impacted, like American
Idol.
23/05/2008
See Also
