Baseball helps Fox pull up close to CBS in ratings, but not quite

ALCS helps Fox in ratings, but CBS is still ahead

NEW YORK — A coast-to-coast baseball playoff series involving New York and Los Angeles almost — but not quite — enabled Fox to loosen CBS’ stranglehold on the prime-time television ratings lead.

The final game of the Yankees-Angels American League Championship Series was seen by 15.5 million people on Sunday, the Nielsen Co. said. Football is traditionally a better TV draw, but the baseball game topped Sunday’s NFL game between Arizona and the N.Y. Giants.

Four games of the Yankees-Angels series on Fox were ranked among Nielsen’s top 25 shows for the week. But of the 12 scripted shows in the top 25, nine of them were on CBS.

“NCIS” was again television’s most popular show for the week, Nielsen said.

CBS averaged 10.7 million viewers (6.8 rating, 11 share) for the week. Fox had 10.3 million (6.3, 10) and won handily among the 18-to-49-year-old demographic many advertisers covet. ABC had 9.1 million viewers (5.9, 10), NBC had 7.2 million (4.6, 8), the CW had 2 million (1.3, 2) and ION Television had 880,000 (0.6, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.5 million viewers (1.8 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.5, 1), TeleFutura had 790,000 (0.4, 1) and Azteca had 200,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.3 million viewers (5.5, 10). ABC’s “World News” was second with 7.7 million (5.2, 10) and the “CBS Evening News” had 6 million viewers (4.1, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Oct. 19-25, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “NCIS,” CBS, 21.25 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 16.82 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 16.48 million; American League Championship Series: L.A. Angels vs. N.Y. Yankees, Game 6, Fox, 15.48 million; “The OT,” Fox, 15.07 million; “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, 15.06 million; NFL Football: Arizona vs. N.Y. Giants,” NBC, 14.98 million; “Dancing With the Stars Results,” ABC, 14.92 million; “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 14.27 million; “Desperate Housewives,” ABC, 14.18 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.