‘Dancing With the Stars’ Tops TV Ratings

NEW YORK – During what is normally the year’s quietest TV week, the only things making noise were the shoes gliding across the stage on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”

The penultimate episode of ABC’s ballroom dancing series was seen by 18.6 million viewers last week, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was by far the week’s most popular program and one of only five programs to reach an audience of more than 10 million.

ABC has been repeating the previous week’s “Dancing With the Stars” episode right before the new one on Wednesday night – and even that telecast made Nielsen’s top 10.

Fox’s new drama “The Inside,” with 4.2 million viewers last week, has been met with a collective yawn.

With its strong lineup of repeats, CBS again won the week, averaging 7.1 million viewers (4.9 rating, 9 share). ABC (4.0, 8) and NBC (4.2, 8) were in a dead heat with 5.9 million viewers, Fox had 4.3 million (2.9, 5), UPN 2.4 million (1.6, 3), the WB 2.1 million (1.4, 3) and Pax TV 610,000 (0.5, 1).

NBC’s “Nightly News” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.1 million viewers (5.7, 12). ABC’s “World News Tonight” had 7.7 million viewers (5.5, 12) and the “CBS Evening News” 6.6 million (4.7, 10).

A ratings point represents 1,096,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 109.6 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of June 27-July 3, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 18.6 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 13.3 million; “Without a Trace,” CBS, 11.4 million; “CSI: Miami,” CBS, 10.7 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 10.6 million; “Everybody Loves Raymond,” CBS, 9.7 million; “Law & Order,” NBC, 9.3 million; “Dancing With the Stars” (Wednesday, 8 p.m.), ABC, 9.3 million; Auto Racing: Daytona 400, NBC, 8.3 million; “CSI: NY,” CBS, 7.7 million.

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