Fox, ABC top Tuesday

'Great Pumpkin' still a family favorite

By RICK KISSELL

"House" carried Fox to its sixth consecutive Tuesday victory to start the season, taking the night even though ABC had strong showings by both "Dancing With the Stars" and its annual Halloween special "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen that include same-day DVR playback, Fox's "House" (7.0 rating/17 share in adults 18-49, 17.2 million viewers overall) was easily the night's top program in key demos despite a week-to-week falloff. Also for the net, "Bones" remains solid opening the night (3.2/9 in 18-49, 8.9 million viewers overall) although it slipped to third for its hour thanks to stronger competition from ABC.

The Alphabet won the 8 o'clock hour in key demos with "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" (3.8/11 in 18-49, 11.4 million viewers overall) and then shot up even more at 9 with the "Dancing With the Stars" results show (roughly 4.3/10 in 18-49, 18.8 million viewers overall). For the first time this season, "Dancing" moved ahead of "House" in total viewers. ABC finished the night with a second-place performance from "Boston Legal" (roughly 3.0/8 in 18-49, 11.2 million viewers overall from 10:02 to 11 p.m.).

At CBS, "NCIS" (3.3/9 in 18-49, 16.3 million viewers overall) dipped week-to-week but ran second to "Charlie Brown" in demos and led its 8 o'clock hour as usual among total viewers. "The Unit" slipped to fourth in the 9 o'clock hour (2.8/7 in 18-49, 8.1 million viewers overall), and "Cane" remains a laggard at 10 p.m. (2.0/5 in 18-49, 8.1 million viewers overall).

NBC started slowly with "The Singing Bee" (1.7/5 in 18-49, 5.8 million viewers overall) before picking up at 8:30 with its 90-minute edition of "The Biggest Loser" (2.8/7 in 18-49, 6.3 million viewers overall). Net then was in a tight race with "Boston Legal" for the 10 o'clock demo lead even with a repeat episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (3.0/8 in 18-49, 8.7 million viewers overall).

CW's "Beauty and the Geek" (1.1/3 in 18-49, 2.3 million viewers overall) saw a rather steep week-to-week decline, but rookie drama "Reaper" was able to limit its losses (1.1/3 in 18-49, 2.5 million viewers overall).

Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: Fox, 5.1/13; ABC, 3.7/10; CBS and NBC, 2.7/7; Univision, 1.6/4; CW, 1.1/3.

In total viewers: ABC, 13.9 million; Fox, 13.0 million; CBS, 11.7 million; NBC, 7.0 million; Univision, 3.8 million; CW, 2.4 million