Nielsen Writes Season Finale

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.


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