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Languid viewers track frenzied contestants

By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press
Published August 18, 2006

NEW YORK - Viewers were preoccupied by the angst and antics of would-be cooks, comics and other entertainers during another slow week on television.

Six shows in Nielsen Media Research's Top 20 last week were competitions among people looking for a big break: So You Think You Can Dance, Hell's Kitchen and two entries each of America's Got Talent and Last Comic Standing 4.

Stretch that list out to Nielsen's top 30 and you'll find three editions of Big Brother: All-Stars, featuring aspiring, um, house guests?

CBS's strong rerun lineup led to another comfortable victory for the network, which averaged 7.3-million viewers in prime time last week. NBC averaged 6.6-million, ABC had 5.46-million, Fox had 5.45-million, UPN had 2-million, the WB had 1.8-million and the i network 650,000.

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision had 3.2-million, Telemundo had 820,000 and TeleFutura 460,000.

NBC's Nightly News won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.1-million viewers. ABC's World News had 7.6-million and the CBS Evening News had 6.9-million.

1. CSI: Miami, CBS, 11.42

2. Two & a Half Men, CBS, 10.40

3. You Can Dance-Wed., Fox, 10.11

4. CSI, CBS, 9.76

5. America's Got Talent, NBC, 9.67

6. 60 Minutes, CBS, 9.34

7. Without a Trace-Sun., CBS, 9.11

8. Without a Trace, CBS, 9.01

9. CSI: NY, CBS, 8.83

10. Washington at Cincinnati, NBC, 8.74

11. America's Got Talent-Thur., NBC, 8.53

12. SVU, NBC, 8.49

13. Primetime, ABC, 8.36

14. Two & a Half Men-8 p.m., CBS, 8.25

15. Hell's Kitchen, Fox, 8.13

16. Cold Case, CBS, 8.12

17. Criminal Minds, CBS, 8.04

18. Old Christine, CBS, 7.95

19. Last Comic, NBC, 7.75

20. Last Comic-Wed., NBC, 7.65

[Last modified August 17, 2006, 11:03:44]