Drama, Reality Give ABC Ratings Win

ABC won every half hour of prime Sunday on its way to a convincing win in the 18-49 demo.

 ABC averaged a 4.2 rating/12 share. No other network broke a 3 rating.

 ABC's top show was Desperate Housewives with a 6.2/16 at 9-10. Brothers and Sisters at 10 p.m. (3.9/10) also more than doubled the rating of CBS and NBC in the time period (1.8/5).

 Also winning their time periods for ABC were Funniest Home Videos (2.4/9) and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (4.1/12).

 Fox was second with a 2.6/8, led by Family Guy with a 3.9/10 at 9-9:30.

  In the cable-on-braodcast matchups of CBS and NBC, the former won out, taking third on the night, but with only a 1.8/5 average for a combination of 60 Minutes (1.6/6) and the off-Showtime two-hour finale of Dexter (1.7/5). NBC was fourth with a 1.2/4, including a blink-and-you-missed it 1 rating/2 share for Psych and .9/3 for Monk, both of which air on co-owned USA Network and work impressed into duty after the writers strike, as was Dexter.

 The CW was fifth with a .5/1 for repeats of Next Top Model, Girlfriends and new outings for Everybody Hates Chris and Aliens in America.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.