CBS Wins First Week Of New Season

NEW YORK (AP) — The new TV season is under way, and in the first round, CBS has left its rivals in the dust.

For the week, CBS averaged 12 million viewers, more than 2 million viewers ahead of runner-up ABC, the Nielsen Co. said Tuesday.

Of course, the season premiere of “Two and a Half Men” didn’t hurt CBS’ cause. Nearly 29 million viewers tuned in to see Ashton Kutcher arrive as Charlie Sheen’s replacement on the veteran sitcom, which was easily the most-watched show of the week.

But CBS logged another 10 shows in the Top 20. These include the premiere of “2 Broke Girls,” the fortunate sitcom that followed the “Two and a Half Men” blockbuster. “Girls” was seen by more than 19 million viewers to be the most-watched new comedy.

CBS could also claim the top two new dramas – “Unforgettable,” ranked 14th, and “Person of Interest,” ranking 16th.

ABC scored with the season premiere of “Dancing with the Stars,” along with a double shot of “Modern Family.”

Fox’s new singing competition, “The X Factor,” placed 19th and 20th.

NBC could console itself with football. Its broadcast of the Steelers-Colts faceoff ranked second.

For the week, CBS averaged 12.12 million viewers (7.6 rating, 12 share), while ABC had 9.87 million (6.4 rating, 10 share), Fox had 8.37 million (4.9 rating, 5 share), and NBC had 7.50 million (4.7 rating, 8 share). The CW had 1.64 million (1.1 rating, 2 share) and ION Television had 950,000 million (0.7 rating, 1 share).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.69 million average (2.0 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 980,000 (0.6 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 400,000 (0.2 rating, 0 share), Azteca had 210,000 and Estrella had 200,000 (both 0.1 rating, 0 share).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.97 million viewers (5.4 rating, 11 share). ABC’s “World News” was second with 7.27 million (5.0 rating, 10 share) and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.82 million viewers (4.0 rating, 8 share).

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.

For the week of Sept. 19-25, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 28.74 million; NFL Football: Pittsburgh at Indianapolis, NBC, 20.36 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 19.96 million; “2 Broke Girls,” CBS, 19.37 million; “Dancing with the Stars,” ABC, 19.03 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 16.71 million; “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 15.98 million; “The Big Bang Theory”-Special, CBS, 14.94 million; “Dancing with the Stars”-Results, ABC, 14.79 million; “Modern Family,” ABC, 14.54 million.