Fox Boasts Crackerjack Ratings

This fall, TV's number-one reality show is its oldest: Baseball.

For the second week in the row, it was the old fuddy-duddy game of knickers and group sing-alongs that sexed up the ratings, delivering Fox its first win of the 2003-04 season.

Through Sunday, ratings for the baseball playoffs were up 34 percent from last year, with the games in the league-championship round up 50 percent.

Overall, there were six prime-time baseball telecasts on Fox for the week ended Sunday. Five of the six finished in the Top 25. Wednesday's Chicago Cubs-Florida Marlins matchup (with a little New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox spillover for good measure) was the most watched of the bunch, averaging 18.4 million viewers, good for fifth place, per Nielsen Media Research.

Powered by the likes of slammin' Sammy Sosa and Dom Zimmer-throwin' Pedro Martinez, Fox averaged a week's-best 13 million viewers, creating much work for CBS and NBC's respective spin doctors.

Per CBS (12.5 million viewers), it placed a "competitive second in a week dominated by six high-interest" baseball games. Per third-place NBC (10.8 million), it "convincingly defeated the non-baseball competition." In other words, it lost.

ABC, boosted by the final new John Ritter episode of 8 Simple Rules... (eighth place, 17.7 million) but dragged down by a little-watched Saturday-night lineup, ran fourth, with 9.5 million.

Elsewhere:

NBC's Must-Not-See Coupling tumbled to 37th place (10.7 million), losing nearly 4 million viewers from its lead-in, Will & Grace (15th place, 14.6 million).

The Practice broke past The Lyon's Den in the Sunday-night lawyer scrimmage. ABC's streamlined legal-eagle show courted 11 million viewers (35th place), while NBC's Rob Lowe-led version averaged 9.8 million (47th place).

Candice Bergen's prime-time return, in the form of the Sunday-night CBS TV-movie Footsteps wouldn't rate a headline from Murphy Brown: 63rd place, 8.3 million.

A visit from the crew of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy couldn't wake up NBC's Good Morning, Miami (55th place, 9 million), which lost ground to Tuesday sitcom rival Less Than Perfect (45th place, 10 million) on ABC.

The Queer Eye gang's own prime-time outing did so-so for the Peacock, which, by the way, actually does refer to itself as "the Peacock." The hourlong Friday special fashioned 5.9 million fans (80th place).

Queer Eye had taken over in the 8-9 p.m. Friday slot for Alicia Silverstone's Miss Match, moved to 9-10 p.m. In its new home, the struggling romantic drama-comedy "improved impressively" in networkspeak. In other words, it finished in 79th place, with 6 million viewers.

CBS' Becker, which apparently is still on the air, began its sixth season in 42nd place (10.4 million).

Overall, CBS' CSI was the week's most watched stiff, with 26.5 million viewers. The Eyeball, which, by the way, does not actually refer to itself as "the Eyeball," placed five shows in the Top 10.

Meanwhile, the WB extended its lead over UPN, averaging 4.4 million to the latter's 3.6 million. The WB was led, per usual, by 7th Heaven (72nd place, 7.4 million) and Smallville (76th place, 6.7 million). UPN got solid performances from freshman sitcoms Eve (90th place, 4.4 million) and All of Us (95th place, 4.1 million), both of which were rewarded with full-season orders on Monday.

To date, no network series has been canceled--not even NBC's incredible-shrinking Whoopi (67th place, 8 million). But things don't look good, in particular, for two Peacock prospects--Boomtown and Ed.

Last week, Boomtown, averaging 7.2 million viewers since its second-season premiere, was pulled from its 10-11 p.m. Friday slot in favor of a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit rerun. It'll stay on the bench this week, too.

As for Ed, it's still on the air, but NBC isn't sounding overly enthusiastic. In its weekly ratings recap, the network ran through its Wednesday lineup in atypical reverse order--bragging about 10 o'clock hit Law & Order (ninth place, 16.5 million), then 9 o'clock hit The West Wing, before finally tossing off a mention about 8 o'clock non-hit Ed (66th place, 8 million).

Here's a rundown of the 10 most watched shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 26.5 million
2. Friends, NBC, 21.9 million
3. ER, NBC, 20.1 million
4. Survivor: Pearl Islands, CBS, 20 million
5. Major League Baseball Championship Series (National League Game 2/American League Game 1), Fox, 18.4 million
6. CSI: Miami, CBS, 18.1 million
7. Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS, 18 million
8. 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, ABC, 17.8 million
9. Law & Order, NBC, 16.5 million
10. Without a Trace, CBS, 16.1 million