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Spock, basketball, country are winners for CBS

[April 04, 2012] LOS ANGELES (AP) -- CBS created its own version of March madness, earning a weekly ratings victory with college basketball, country music and a dash of Mr. Spock.

Besides scoring with special programming last week, the network had a monopoly on dramas and sitcoms in the top 10, including "NCIS" and "The Big Bang Theory."

Leonard Nimoy lent his Spock voice and spirit to the CBS comedy, haunting Jim Parsons' Sheldon after he breaks a vintage "Star Trek" toy.

CBS also got a boost from Kansas' 64-62 victory over Ohio State in the NCAA semifinals and from the Academy of Country Music Awards.

ABC touted its third consecutive week at No. 2, aided by the start of voting results for "Dancing With the Stars" and strong showings by fairy tale drama "Once Upon a Time" and, in its final season, "Desperate Housewives."

Fox's "Touch," the new Kiefer Sutherland drama that debuted with a strong 11.8 million viewers, fell to 8.9 million in its second outing.

CBS won the week with an average 11.5 million viewers in prime time (7.1 rating, 12 share). ABC had 7.5 million (4.9, 8), Fox had 6.7 million (4.0, 7), NBC had 4.9 million (3.1, 5), the CW had 1.4 million (0.9, 1) and ION Television had 1 million (0.7, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with an average of 3.6 million viewers (1.90, 3). Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 620,000 (0.3, 1), Estrella had 210,000 and Azteca 120,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of just under 8 million viewers (5.4, 11). ABC's "World News" was second with 7.1 million (4.9, 10) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.8 million viewers (3.9, 8).

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.

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For the week of March 26-April 1, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewership: "NCIS," CBS, 18.62 million; "Dancing With the Stars" (Monday), ABC, 17.96 million; "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 17.87 million; NCAA Basketball (Saturday), CBS, 16.6 million; "American Idol" (Thursday), Fox, 15.88 million; "Dancing With the Stars (Tuesday), 15.74 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 14.75 million; "Person of Interest," CBS, 14.59 million; "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 13.96 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 13.62 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.

___

Online:

http://www.nielsen.com/

[Associated Press; By LYNN ELBER]

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