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Baseball all-stars a midsummer hit for Fox

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 21, 2006

NEW YORK - A competitive baseball all-star game boosted the event's viewership by 17 percent over last year and helped Fox during a midsummer quiet period.

The game, won by the American League with two outs in the ninth inning, was the most-watched program in prime time last week with an audience of 14.4-million, according to Nielsen Media Research. It helped Fox win the week among viewers 18 to 49.

CBS still won among all viewers, primarily because its series do much better in reruns than its rivals. Of the 10 most popular reruns last week, eight were on CBS.

NBC's America's Got Talent with Regis Philbin was again the most popular summer reality program. CBS's Rock Star: Supernova appears headed toward a ratings black hole; it attracted only 5.2-million viewers.

For the week, CBS averaged just under 7-million viewers in prime time. Fox and NBC were in a virtual tie with 6.5-million, ABC had 5.1-million, UPN 2-million, the WB 1.9-million and the I network 690,000.

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision had 3.2-million viewers, Telemundo 850,000 and TeleFutura 610,000.

NBC's Nightly News was back on top in the evening news ratings race, averaging 8-million viewers. ABC's World News Tonight had 7.4-million and the CBS Evening News 6.7-million.

Here are the week's most watched shows, with their network and number of viewers in millions:

1. All-Star Game, Fox, 14.42

2. America's Got Talent, NBC, 11.14

3. CSI: Miami, CBS, 10.61

4. CSI, CBS, 10.33

5. All-Star Preview, Fox, 10.21

6. So You Think You Can Dance, Wed., Fox, 9.65

7. CSI: NY, CBS, 9.55

8. Without a Trace, CBS, 9.50

9. So You Think You Can Dance, Thur., Fox, 9.34

10. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 9.15

11. Dateline, NBC, 9.03

12. 60 Minutes, CBS, 8.20

13. How I Met Your Mother, CBS, 8.13

14. Criminal Minds, CBS, 8.12

15. Law & Order: SVU, NBC, 8.0

16. Last Comic Standing, NBC, 7.58

17. Law & Order, NBC, 7.57

18. Cold Case, CBS, 7.49

19. Big Brother, Tue., CBS, 7.34

20. Law & Order: Criminal Intent, NBC, 7.22

[Last modified July 20, 2006, 23:44:06]