All-Star game was last week's most-viewed program

[July 18, 2012]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Baseball's All-Star Game hit a home run with viewers last week.

The midsummer faceoff between the National and American leagues was the most-watched prime-time telecast during a week mostly notable for audience doldrums, according to figures released Tuesday by the Nielsen Co. Nearly 11 million viewers tuned in for Fox's coverage as the National League shut out its opposition, 8 to 0.

Otherwise, the week's most-watched programs were mostly reality and newsmagazine originals along with scripted reruns.

Thursday's season premiere of CBS' "Big Brother" reality competition placed ninth for the week with an audience of more than 7 million. Its Sunday airing ranked 11th, with 6.2 million viewers.

CBS dominated the top 20, helping that network to an overall prime-time victory with an average of 5.45 million viewers (3.6 rating, 6 share). Fox was runner-up with 4.94 million (3.0 rating, 5 share), while ABC averaged 4.49 million (2.9 rating, 5 share) and NBC had 4.41 million (2.8 rating, 5 share). ION Television had 1.07 million (0.7 rating, 1 share) and the CW had 690,000 (both with 0.5 rating, 1 share).

Univision was on top among the Spanish-language networks with an average of 3.67 million viewers (1.8 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 1.43 million (0.8 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 620,000 (0.3 rating, 1 share), Estrella had 100,000 and Azteca 70,000 (both with a 0.1 rating, 0 share).

NBC's "Nightly News" retained its leadership status among the evening newscasts with an average of 7.8 million viewers (5.3 rating, 11 share). ABC's "World News" was second with 7.0 million (4.7 rating, 10 share) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.8 million viewers (4.0 rating, 8 share).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of July 9-15, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: Major League Baseball All-Star Game, Fox, 10.90 million; "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday), NBC, 10.69 million; "The Big Bang Theory" (Thursday), CBS, 9.03 million; "NCIS," CBS, 8.45 million; "The Bachelorette," ABC, 8.12 million; "America's Got Talent" (Wednesday), NBC, 8.08 million; "The Big Bang Theory" (Wednesday), CBS, 7.99 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 7.40 million; "Big Brother" (Thursday), CBS, 7.18 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 6.30 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.; CBS is owned by CBS Corp.; CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp.; Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp.; NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp.; ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks; TeleFutura is a division of Univision; Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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Online:

http://www.nielsen.com/

[Associated Press; By FRAZIER MOORE]

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