Bob Barker's Sweeps Smackdown

As Happy Gilmore learned, Bob Barker is not a man with whom to mess.

The TV legend single-handedly took down the season finales of Ugly Betty and Bones with a one-two punch of specials.

Bob Barker: A Celebration of 50 Years on Television scored 14.3 million attendees for CBS on Thursday night, good enough for a top 10 finish in the latest Nielsen Media Research rankings, and a time-slot victory over Ugly Betty's guns-blazing cliffhanger on ABC (25th place, 10.5 million).

A Wednesday night Price Is Right prime-time special, hosted by Barker, beat out the likes of Fox's Bones (21st place, 10.9 million) with nearly 14 million viewers, just missing the top 10. (It finished 11th.)

The only hole in Barker's game this sweeps month was an inability to convince audiences of a certain age that his silver hair isn't old, but rather rakishly stylish.

In short: The 83-year-old Barker wasn't big with the kids.

While it was tops in overall viewers, the Barker retrospective, for instance, ran third in the 8 p.m., Thursday hour among young adults. The 18-to-49-year-old crowd sided first with the hourlong Office finale on NBC (37th place, 7.9 million) and, then with Ugly Betty, before checking out the guy who once clobbered Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore.

The older the viewers got, however, the bigger Barker's numbers got. Among 25-to-54-year-olds, the special ran second in the Thursday hour. It's believed it also performed especially well in the 85-to-death demo, despite stiff competition that same week from Celebrating Cronkite at 90 (58th place, 5.7 million), also on CBS (natch), and assorted Life Alert commercials.

Pretty soon, Barker won't have to concern himself with Nielsen numbers, big, small or otherwise. He's set to hand in his long, skinny Price Is Right mike in June.

The man didn't want to grow old in the job.

Elsewhere, in ratings highlights for the TV week ended Sunday:

• The wedding that didn't happen on ABC's Grey's Anatomy (third place, 22.6 million) beat out the capture of the Miniature Killer on CBS' CSI (fifth place, 20.4 million). Season-long bragging rights, however, in the 9 p.m., Thursday hour will go to CSI.
• With audiences apparently still scared off by Bee Gees' week, Tuesday's Idol (second place, 24.2 million) was down a lot—as in, 4.1 million viewers down--from last year's top-three performance episode. Melinda Doolittle's unexpected exit on Wednesday's Idol (first place, 28.1 million), however, did not go unnoticed. The results episode was, in fact, up slightly over last year's.
• Was Edie's apparent suicide for the best—or for naught? ABC's Desperate Housewives (seventh place, 18.8 million) cliffhanger scored the show's biggest audience since November—and its smallest audience ever for a season closer.
• Ian Ziering's ballroom run is done, but he went out in top 10 style, thanks to Monday's Dancing with the Stars (sixth place, 19.6 million) and Tuesday's disappointing (for him) results show (eighth place, 18.4 million).
• NBC's penultimate Heroes (20th place, 11.5 million) beat Fox's penultimate 24 (24th place, 10.6 million), which both lost to the last-ever King of Queens (12th place, 13.6 million) on CBS.
• Combined, the 400-episode-old The Simpsons (29th place, 9.9 million) and the going-on-14-season-old ER (30th place, 9.5 million) are almost as old as Bob Barker. And almost as sturdy in the Nielsens.
• Carrie Underwood won, and Kelly Clarkson sang, but CBS' telecast of the Academy of Country Music Awards (31st place, 9.3 million) couldn't come close to Tuesday's Idol. Ratings were down 23 percent from last year.
• Apparently jealous of CBS' gray power, ABC launched National Bingo Night (54th place, 6.2 million) only to get crossed up, and beaten out, on Friday night by a CBS Dr. Phil special about a guy who caged his kids (38th place, 7.8 million).  
• Jaslene Gonzalez may or may not get a lot of mileage out of winning the latest America's Next Top Model crown, but the CW did all right with the show's finale—50th place, 6.4 million.
• The CW's The Gilmore Girls (73rd place, 4.9 million) perked up for its series finale; Veronica Mars (111th place, 2.1 million) didn't with its penultimate episode.
• In cable, sports—from the NBA playoffs, to NASCAR, to baseball—ruled. But because they're plucky that way, Nick's SpongeBob SquarePants (4 million viewers for a Saturday morning episode) and Disney Channel's Hannah Montana (3.8 million for a Friday night episode) managed to sneak into the top 10. 
• Oddly enough, Fox News Channel had no trouble assembling an audience for the latest Republican Presidential debate (2.6 million viewers).
• Bravo did not air Days of Thunder a million times last week—it only aired it four times, combining to pull in 979,000 old-school Tom Cruise fans.

Overall, ABC was the sweeps week's most watched network, averaging 10.8 million viewers; Fox was its highest rated network among people not quite as old as Bob Barker.

With the season ending after Wednesday night, the networks, even NBC, were busy preemptively declaring victories, or at least assorted accomplishments.

Fox says it'll claim the season's 18-to-49 demo crown; CBS says it'll take the title among total viewers; ABC says it'll post the "top-scripted English-language series with Hispanic viewers"; and NBC says it'll emerge with a hipper audience than last season. According to the latter network, its average viewer is now 48.2 years old, and, judging by the ratings, an infrequent TV watcher.

Here's a look at the 10 most watched prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 28.1 million viewers
2. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 24.2 million viewers
3. Grey's Anatomy, ABC, 22.6 million viewers
4. House, Fox, 21.2 million viewers
5. CSI, CBS, 20.4 million viewers
6. Dancing with the Stars (Monday), ABC, 19.6 million viewers
7. Desperate Housewives, ABC, 18.8 million viewers
8. Dancing with the Stars (Tuesday), ABC, 18.4 million viewers
9. CSI: Miami, CBS, 16.6 million viewers
10. Bob Barker: A Celebration of 50 Years of Television, CBS, 14.3 million viewers