Saying High...Again

High School Musical is going on two years old. It's out on DVD. Before Sunday, it'd been on TV 20 times. So what happened when it aired for the 21st time on Sunday?

The Disney Channel movie garnered cable's second-biggest audience of the week.

Immune to the damaging rays of overexposure, High School Musical averaged 5.8 million viewers, its third-biggest audience ever, per Nielsen Media Research stats.

Speaking of overexposure...

David Beckham's inaugural Major League Soccer match wasn't in the same ratings league with the 21st High School Musical, although as far as Major League Soccer matches go the Beckham's Saturday night debut with the L.A. Galaxy did well, attracting 947,000 lookyloos, an all-time high for MLS on ESPN or ESPN2, the networks said.

The Beckham bow came after seven months of buildup. High School Musical's 21st TV outing, meanwhile, came after a long, dry, barren stretch of, well, about 12 weeks.

That the Disney Channel broke the peppy pop piece out of the vault as it prepares to unveil its sequel, High School Musical 2, on Aug. 17 is entirely un-coincidental. The new movie, reuniting East High alums Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens, among others, was promoted early and often during Sunday's telecast of the old movie.

The air date worked out well for Efron, who could be seen singing and dancing in the big-screen version of Hairspray, which opened last weekend.

Ratings-wise, High School Musical 2 will have to score at least 7.8 million viewers to live up to its predecessor's January 2006 premiere; it'll have to rate north of 8.2 million to set a new Disney Channel record.

And it'll have to air at least a bajillion times to catch up to the original in that department.

Oops, sorry. Disney Channel aired High School Musical again Monday afternoon and plans to run it twice more before the premiere of High School Musical 2, so make that a bajillion-and-three times.

Elsewhere, in other ratings highlights:

• If Glenn Close was wondering how cable viewers will take to Oscar-caliber actresses headlining their own series, The Shield vet need wonder no more. Holly Hunter did just fine with TNT's Saving Grace, which, per its network, scored the year's biggest cable series debut, with 6.4 million viewers. Close's Damages premieres Tuesday night on FX.    
• Last week's The Closer, also of TNT, sealed the deal with a cable-best 6.9 million viewers—and star Kyra Sedgwick didn't have to sing about teamwork, friendship or anything upbeat like that.
• More cable standouts for the week ended Sunday: Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (5.1 million); USA's Monk (4.9 million); and, USA's Psych (3.9 million).
• Another top performer: Any Disney Channel show with the word "Halloween" in the title (i.e., Return to Halloweentown, Halloweentown High, Halloweentown II: Kalabar, etc.). It's still only July, right? 
• TBS might finally have a new cable-comedy hit. The Bill Engvall Show (3.9 million) even outdrew Everybody Loves Raymond reruns.
• Bravo's Top Chef 3 Miami cooked with a season-high 2.1 million.
• Tammy Faye Messner's final interview, aired one day before her death on CNN's Larry King Live, averaged 1.8 million, the show's best numbers of the week.
• If only every day could be like summer for NBC...The fourth-place network logged the week's top two broadcast shows, The Singing Bee (first place, 11 million) and America's Got Talent (second place, 10.4 million).
• So You Think You Can Dance (fourth place, 9.1 million for its Thursday installment; 11th place, 8.1 million for the Wednesday show) and Hell's Kitchen (10th place, 8.2 million) got season-long renewals from Fox. 
• Don't Forget the Lyrics (eight place, 8.4 million for the Thursday show; 19th place, 7.4 million for the Wednesday episode) got a new 13-episode order from Fox.
• The Jimmy Kimmel-hosted Set for Life (71st place, 4.1 million) got nothing from ABC.
• Pirate Master (64th place, 4.4 million) is such a special show that CBS wants to make sure everybody watches its final episodes. On its Website. Where it can't harm the network anymore.     
• Never underestimate the power of a hidden-camera show, as the top 10 debut for ABC's Just for Laughs (seventh place, 8.6 million) proved. 
• The former Posh Spice got worse reviews for her NBC special than her Beckham better half got for his Stateside soccer debut, but she managed more viewers for Victoria Beckham: Coming to America (5 million, 47th place).

Overall, Pirate Master couldn't keep CBS down. The network aired just enough CSI reruns to win the week, averaging a whopping 6.2 million. NBC (6 million), Fox (5.5 million), ABC (4.7 million) and CW (1.9 million) trailed.

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

1. The Singing Bee, NBC, 11 million viewers
2. America's Got Talent, NBC, 10.4 million viewers
3. Law & Order: SVU, NBC, 9.5 million viewers
4. So You Think You Can Dance (Thursday), Fox, 9.1 million viewers
5. CSI, CBS, 8.9 million viewers
6. CSI: NY, CBS, 8.7 million viewers
7. Just for Laughs, ABC, 8.6 million viewers
8. Don't Forget the Lyrics (Thursday), Fox, 8.4 million viewers
9. Shark, CBS, 8.3 million viewers
10. Hell's Kitchen, Fox, 8.2 million viewers