ABC stepped to an unaccustomed audience victory last week, lifted by "Dancing With the Stars," whose Monday edition was seen by nearly 22.4 million viewers to become the week's most-watched show.
Excluding the February week of the Oscarcast, ABC scored its first win in viewership in almost a year, according to Nielsen Co. figures released Tuesday. ABC averaged 8.7 million viewers overall in prime time (with a 5.5 household rating, 9 share).
Close behind was CBS with an average 8.4 million viewers (5.3 rating, 9 share), while Fox took third place with 8.1 million (4.8 rating, 8 share).
NBC was far behind, averaging 5.9 million viewers (3.6 rating, 6 share). The premiere of "The Voice," its much-promoted singing competition, was that network's only show to crack the Top 20, ranking eighth place.
The CW averaged 1.8 million viewers (1.1 rating, 2 share) and ION Television had 1.3 million (0.8 rating, 1 share).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with an average of 3.4 million viewers (1.8 rating, 3 share), while Telemundo had 1.4 million (0.7 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 570,000 (0.3 rating, 0 share), Estrella had 240,000 (0.1 rating, 0 share) and Azteca had 180,000 (0.1 rating, 0 share).
NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.9 million viewers (5.8 rating, 12 share). ABC's "World News" was second with 8.3 million (5.5 rating, 11 share) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.7 million viewers (3.9 rating, 8 share).
A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of April 25-May 1, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "Dancing With the Stars" (Monday), ABC, 22.38 million; "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 22.32 million; "American Idol" (Thursday), Fox, 19.60 million; "Dancing With the Stars" (Tuesday), ABC, 18.28 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 13.53 million; "Dancing With the Stars" (Special - Tuesday), ABC, 13.08 million; "Body of Proof," ABC, 11.86 million; "The Voice," NBC, 11.78 million; "Survivor: Redemption Island," CBS, 11.32 million; "Better With You," ABC, 11.23 million.
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 NBC Universal. 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.