{alltv} Rerun season hurts CBS; Fox's `Idol' dominates

NEW YORK – The March rerun season probably cost CBS a victory in the weekly ratings race.

What's that? Reruns in March? In order to stretch a limited number of original episodes across a September-to-May season, networks need to find a few pockets to stick in reruns.

The holiday season is one. Last week was another, as reruns dominated the schedule. Television's most popular scripted show, CBS' "NCIS," had 13.4 million viewers last week, the Nielsen Co. said. With originals the previous three weeks, "NCIS" topped 19 million viewers each time, once reaching 21.3 million.

That means Fox's two "American Idol" episodes dominated the landscape even more than usual. The loss of Simon Cowell has hardly proved fatal for the talent show; its ratings with new judges Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler are holding up well.

Fox (an average of 9.79 million viewers last week) and CBS (9.76 million) were essentially in a dead heat last week. CBS had a 6.0 rating and a 10 audience share, while Fox landed a 5.6 rating and a 9 share. ABC had 5.4 million viewers (3.4, 6), NBC had 5.2 million (3.3, 6), ION Television had 1.3 million (0.9, 2) and the CW had 1.1 million (0.7, 1)

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led the way by averaging 3.9 million viewers (2.0 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.3 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 770,000 (0.4, 1), Azteca had 230,000 and Estrella 160,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.6 million viewers (6.2, 12). ABC's "World News" was second with 8.3 million (5.6, 11) and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.2 million viewers (4.1, 8).

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 March 7-13, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 24.4 million; "American Idol" (Thursday), Fox, 22.05 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 14.2 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 13.45 million; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 13.39 million; "NCIS," CBS, 13.35 million; "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 12.06 million; "Glee," Fox, 11.92 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 11.85 million; "Undercover Boss," CBS, 11.78 million.