{alltv} CBS most-viewed network for fifth week in a row

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NEW YORK – Episodic reruns and reality shows handed CBS a decisive win in last week's ratings.

But fresh reality fare served all the networks well. The Tuesday edition of NBC's "America's Got Talent" was the week's most-watched show, followed by ABC's "The Bachelorette" and the Wednesday broadcast of "Talent" ranking third, the Nielsen Co. said Tuesday.

Two airings of "Wipeout" ranked fifth and sixth for ABC, and three editions of CBS' "Big Brother" landed comfortably in the Top 20.

Even so, repeats of CBS' "NCIS," "The Big Bang Theory," "Two and a Half Men," "The Mentalist" and the "60 Minutes" newsmagazine all placed in the Top 10.

For the fifth consecutive week, CBS dominated in total prime-time audience, averaging 5.9 million viewers (3.8 rating, 7 share). ABC and NBC were virtually tied with 4.99 million and 4.96 million, respectively (each with 3.2 rating, 6 share). Fox was next with 4.5 million (2.8 rating, 5 share). ION had 1.2 million (1.7 rating, 3 share) and the CW had 1.1 million (0.7 rating, 1 share).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.5 million prime-time viewer average (1.7 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.2 million (0.6 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 630,000 (0.3 rating, 1 share), Azteca had 210,000 and Estrella had 180,000 (both with a 0.1 rating, 0 share).

Among the evening newscasts, NBC's "Nightly News" was on top, as usual, but ABC's "World News" narrowed the viewer gap to its smallest margin this season. NBC logged 7.37 million (4.9 rating, 11 share), while ABC was 360,000 viewers behind with 7.01 million (4.8 rating, 10 share). The "CBS Evening News" had 5.01 million (3.5 rating, 7 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 July 19-25, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday), NBC, 10.48 million; "The Bachelorette," ABC, 10.01 million; "America's Got Talent" (Wednesday), NBC, 10.00 million; "NCIS," CBS, 9.81 million; "Wipeout" (Tuesday), ABC, 8.34 million; "Wipeout" (Thursday), ABC, 7.87 million; "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 7.81 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 7.77 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 7.67 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 7.32 million.