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'Dancing with the Stars' TV's opening night winner

[September 22, 2010] NEW YORK (AP) -- Forget Bristol Palin and The Situation. It's the folks at ABC who are dancing.

The 21 million people who watched Monday's two-hour "Dancing with the Stars" made it the clear winner on the opening night of a new television season, the Nielsen Co. said on Tuesday. After a long, slow summer, CBS and NBC had some good news, too.

The "Dancing with the Stars" debut was up 18 percent over last season's opener, Nielsen said.

Veteran shows usually aren't growing like that at this stage of their career, said Marc Berman, an analyst for Media Week Online. "They put together a very good cast of characters," he said.

CBS' remake of "Hawaii Five-0" dominated in the 10 p.m. hour, with the night's second biggest audience at 13.8 million people. ABC's "Castle" at that hour had a strong showing with 11.2 million people, Nielsen said.

NBC's much-hyped mystery "The Event" also had 11.2 million viewers, a strong sampling that nearly doubled the audience for "Heroes" at the beginning of last season.

Curious viewers also gave a good start to the new CBS comedy "Mike & Molly." Its audience of 12.2 million people is considered strong retention out of the season premiere of "Two and a Half Men, which had 14.5 million viewers.

The night's biggest loser -- and we're not talking about excess weight -- was probably Fox's new "Lone Star," which may be on life support after getting only 4.5 million viewers and losing more than half the audience that watched "House" in the time slot before it.

"Lone Star" "declined significantly in the second half-hour," Berman said. "Whoever did tune in didn't stay with it."

Only two days after its premiere on Sunday, HBO announced that it was ordering a second season of the prohibition-era drama "Boardwalk Empire." The show was seen by 4.8 million people on Sunday, the biggest debut of an HBO series in six years, Nielsen said.

Behind the one-two punch of pro football and "America's Got Talent," NBC won the final week of the summer TV season, averaging 8.9 million viewers (5.5 rating, 10 share).

CBS averaged 8 million viewers last week (5.0 rating, 9 share), ABC had 5.2 million (3.3, 6), Fox had 3.9 million (2.4, 4), the CW had 2.2 million (1.4, 2) and ION television had 1.3 million (0.3, 1).

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Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.8 million (1.9 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 790,000 (0.4, 1), TeleFutura had 690,000 (0.3, 1), Azteca h ad 150,000 and Estrella 130,000 (both 0.1, 1).

NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.8 million viewers (5.2, 12). ABC's "World News" was second with 6.9 million (4.7, 10) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.2 million viewers (3.5).

A ratings point represents 1,159,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 115.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Sept 13-19, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: N.Y. Giants vs. Indianapolis, NBC, 23.1 million; "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 18.46 million; "America's Got Talent" (Wednesday), NBC, 16.46; "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday), NBC, 14.6; "60 Minutes," CBS, 13.54 million; "Football Night in America," NBC, 13.48 million; "Survivor: Nicaragua," CBS, 12.23 million; "Outlaw 9/15," NBC, 10.68 million; "NCIS," CBS, 10.4 million; "Undercover Boss," CBS, 8.71 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 General Electric Co. 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.nielsenmedia.com

[Associated Press; By DAVID BAUDER]

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