CBS claims ratings win for 1st week of TV season

NEW YORK – (AP) CBS was off to a rosy start as the 2012-13 season logged its first week.

That network claimed a solid lead in total prime-time viewers, took 10 of the top 20 program slots, and had the two most-watched series premieres.

CBS’ new period-piece drama, “Vegas,” debuted in sixth place, while its contemporary Sherlock Holmes whodunit, “Elementary,” premiered in 10th place, according to Nielsen Co. figures released last Tuesday.

ABC’s “Last Resort” was the third-highest-premiering series, ranked in 32nd place.

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” was No. 1 in the rankings, but CBS’ “NCIS” was second for the week, “NCIS: Los Angeles” was fourth and “Big Bang Theory” was fifth.

NBC had some good news, too. In the important 18-to-49 demographic, NBC vaulted from fourth-place for the 2011 premiere week to first-place last week.

NBC’s audience in that audience category increased by 12 percent year to year – the only network to see an increase. It was NBC’s highest-rated premiere week in that demo since 2008.

Overall last week in total viewers, CBS scored 10.69 million (6.8 rating, 11 share), while runner-up ABC had 8.33 million (5.4 rating, 9 share). NBC averaged 8.19 million (5.2 rating, 8 share), Fox had 6.90 million (4,2 rating, 7 share), ION Television had 920,000 (0.6 rating, 1 share) and the CW had 680,000 (0.5 rating, 1 share).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.54 million viewers (1.9 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 1.20 million (0.6 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 630,000 (0.3 rating, 1 share), Estrella had 230,000 and Azteca had 120,000 (both 0.1 rating, 0 share).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts, as it had for the previous 158 weeks. But ABC’s “World News” was nipping at its heels, even beating “Nightly News” on Tuesday and Friday. For the week, “World News” was only 42,000 viewers behind “Nightly News” – the smallest gap since September 2009, when the ABC newscast most recently claimed first place.

Overall, “Nightly News” led with 7.430 million viewers (5.1 household rating, 10 share), while “World News” was close behind with 7.388 million (5.1 rating, 10 share). “Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams was off from Wednesday through Friday, with Savannah Guthrie anchoring in his absence. “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer was off Thursday, when George Stephanopoulos substituted, and Friday, when David Muir sat in.

Third-place “CBS Evening News” had 6.15 million viewers (4.2 rating, 9 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. 24-30, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: Sunday Night Football: NY Giants at Philadelphia, NBC, 22.77 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 20.48 million; “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 17.05 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 16.74 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 15.66 million; “Vegas,” CBS, 14.85 million; “Modern Family,” ABC, 14.44 million; “Person of Interest,” CBS, 14.28 million; “Dancing with the Stars,” ABC, 14.11 million; “Elementary,” CBS, 13.41 million.