Football, 'Housewives' Fuel Victory for ABC
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ABC soared above the competition last week with dominating performances by college and pro football, as well as hits such as red-hot rookie "Desperate Housewives."
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LOS ANGELES  - ABC and CBS vied for  Nielsen glory Sunday as holiday-light viewing levels and  repeats dominated the primetime schedules of the Big Four  networks.
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Green Bay's win over Carolina in the first game of the season on ABC's "Monday Night Football," was the second-most watched prime-time show of the week, trailing only NBC's debut episode of the "Friends" spinoff "Joey."
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LOS ANGELES  - ABC, which is enjoying a  strong start to the season thanks to the new dramas "Desperate  Housewives" and "Lost," has given a thumbs up to its two rookie  comedies, "Rodney" and "Complete Savages."
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The piece that opened Monday Night Football this week has been debated and analyzed about as much as the Zapruder film. There are plenty of losers in this fiasco but we can all agree on the winner: Desperate Housewives.
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Fueled by football, NBC  won last week&#39;s ratings race in the key adults 18-49  demographic. But CBS returned to No. 1 in total viewers after  finishing second the previous week.
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ABC's red-hot "Desperate Housewives" turned positively volcanic on Sunday, delivering its highest ratings to date.
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How high can Housewives fly? Sunday's episode of ABC's hot Desperate Housewives drew a record 24.9 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsens. And nearly 15 million of them were young adults, making the soapy suburban saga last week's top show among that crucial audience.
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LOS ANGELES  - A double shot of  "Survivor: Vanuatu," a triple dose of "CSI" and a dash of "The  Amazing Race 6" drove CBS to an easy victory in primetime in  the week that ended Dec. 12.
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The series that turned ABC around was initially just about Marc Cherry's mom &#151; but it wound up appealing to a lot more desperate housewives, and their husbands, too.
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&quot;Desperate Housewives&quot; was hot-to-trot in its second outing for ABC on Sunday, leading the network to a commanding nightly victory with assistance from
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ABC has pulled out of negotiations to continue airing college football's Bowl Championship Series (BCS).
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Buoyed by football and its suddenly potent Sunday lineup, ABC was the nation's most popular network for the first time this season and had its best ratings week in four years.
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LOS ANGELES  - Another set of  record-breaking numbers for freshman phenomenon "Desperate  Housewives" fueled long-time laggard ABC to a close  second-place finish in the coveted adults 18-49 demographic  last week behind the network to beat this season, CBS.
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Before the game, ABC showed the actress and the Philadelphia Eagles star in an empty locker room in an attempt to spoof the network hit &quot;Desperate Housewives.
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On a night in which Foxâs Super Bowl coverage won a resounding victory in the ratings, ABC, CBS and NBC struggled to attract even meager audiences during prime time. CBS fared best, finishing a very distant runner-up thanks in part to the strength of â60 Minutes,â which drew 5 million viewers at 8 p.m., according to Nielsenâs estimate. This veteran news magazine followed a news special on the National Guard at 7 p.m., âCBS Reportsâ (3.3 million), while repeats of CBSâs âSharkâ and âCold Caseâ attracted 4.2 million and 6.1 million viewers, respectively, at 9 and 10 p.m. ABC, in third place for the night, outpaced CBS in the important demographic of adults 18 to 49, getting a boost later in the night from the 2004 movie with Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro, âMeet the Fockers,â which averaged 4.1 million viewers from 9 to 11. NBC ranked fourth over all with four repeat hours of âThe Biggest Loser,â which averaged 2.3 million viewers.
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With ABC&#39;s new dark comedy series &quot;Desperate Housewives&quot; scoring big numbers for a second consecutive week, it&#39;s only a matter of time before the other broadcast networks put out APBs seeking