Crime dramas help CBS grab top spot in weekly Nielsen battle

Battling all summer for bragging rights, Jerry Bruckheimer could claim victory last week over fellow TV producer Dick Wolf – four top 10 shows to two.

The three most-watched programs all were Bruckheimer productions: “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Without a Trace” and “CSI: Miami.”

And “Cold Case” was ninth in Nielsen Media Research’s rankings. All were on CBS.

Wolf’s “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and “Law & Order,” both on NBC, were ranked sixth and tenth.

All six shows were reruns. These crime dramas do particularly well in repeats because they are self-contained, meaning all the issues are resolved by the end of the hour.

Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen,” with just under 9 million viewers, was the only non-rerun in Nielsen’s top 10. None of CBS’ three episodes of “Rock Star: INXS” managed to get more than 6 million viewers, which explains why the network shuttled one of the weekly showings off to VH1.

CBS handily won the week, averaging 7.3 million viewers in prime time (4.9 rating, 9 share). NBC had 5.9 million (4.2, 8), ABC 5.6 million (3.8, 7), Fox 5.2 million (3.4, 6), UPN 2.7 million (1.8, 3) and the WB 1.8 million (1.2, 2).

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.