It’s Fox or CBS in Nielsens race

With a month remaining in the TV season and CBS having all but wrapped up the title of most popular network, the industry’s attention turns to the hot battle between Fox and CBS for dominance among youthful viewers.

Fox won a decisive victory in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic last week, boosted by Sunday’s triumphant return of “Family Guy,” according to Nielsen Media Research.

“Family Guy,” the cartoon that Fox canceled four years ago only to bring back after its DVDs became unexpectedly popular, was seen by just under 12 million viewers Sunday. It ranked in Nielsen’s top 10 among viewers aged 18 to 49 and helped Fox’s Sunday lineup to its best ratings performance in more than a year.

“American Dad,” the new animated series from “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane, followed and held on to about 80 percent of the “Family Guy” audience.

Fox’s season average of 5.26 million young viewers a week now leads CBS’s 5.17 million viewers, according to Nielsen. ABC is third and NBC an unprecedented fourth.

Fox may be hard to beat with the conclusion of “American Idol” imminent, but the normally stable CBS has been doing some unusual schedule shuffling to grab any edge it can.

CBS has moved episodes of the “CSI” franchise into its normally troublesome Friday lineup. An “Everybody Loves Raymond” repeat was shown Monday, and “The King of Queens” makes a brief return to Monday next week.

Meanwhile, in a prime-time matchup that Mark Burnett undoubtedly disliked, CBS’ “Survivor” trounced “The Apprentice” on NBC last Thursday, 21.2 million viewers to 12.4 million.

Burnett produces both shows. They went up against each other because CBS moved “Survivor” back an hour to show President Bush’s news conference.

For the week, CBS averaged 13 million viewers (8.5 rating, 14 share), Fox had 10.1 million (6.1, 10), ABC 9.3 million (6.0, 10), NBC 9.1 million (6.1, 10), the WB 3.7 million (2.4, 4) and UPN 3.4 million (2.2, 4).

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.

The top 10 shows for the week ending Sunday: “Desperate Housewives,” ABC, 25.7 million viewers; “American Idol” (Tuesday), Fox, 25.5 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 24.4 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 23.7 million; “Survivor: Palau,” CBS, 21.2 million; “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, 17.9 million; “House,” Fox, 16.5 million; “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” ABC, 16.4 million; “Cold Case,” CBS, 16.3 million; “Everybody Loves Raymond,” CBS, 15.8 million.