'Survivor' finale helps CBS ratings

NEW YORK -- It was another winning week for CBS, which dominated the ratings with six of the top 10 shows -- while conspiring with Fox and ABC to shut out NBC. The top program was Fox's "American Idol" May 11 edition.

CBS claimed the second-place "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," as well as both the finale and next-to-last edition of "Survivor: Palau," plus "CSI: Miami," "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Without a Trace."

ABC's red-hot "Desperate Housewives" beat the "Survivor" finale in their shared Sunday time slot to take third-place for the week, Nielsen Media Research reported.

NBC's most-viewed program was "E.R.," in 13th place, and it logged only three shows in the Top 20. "Revelations," the apocalyptic six-week miniseries, was fading as it faced the end: After attracting 15.6 million viewers for its April 13 premiere, its penultimate installment drew only 8.4 million, ranking 44th.

Clearly on top overall last week, CBS averaged 14.8 million viewers (9.3 household rating, 16 share). Fox was a distant second with 9.3 million viewers (5.8 rating, 10 share). ABC had 9.11 million (6.0 rating, 10 share), and NBC was close behind with 9.08 million (6.2 rating, 10 share). UPN had 3.8 million viewers (2.4 rating, 4 share), the WB had 3.3 million viewers (2.2 rating, 4 share), and Pax TV had 520,000 (0.4 rating, 1 share).

NBC's "Nightly News" decisively won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.8 million viewers (6.4 rating, 13 share). ABC's "World News Tonight" had 8.0 million (5.7 rating, 12 share), while the "CBS Evening News" had 6.5 million (4.7 rating, 10 share).

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.