What's on TiVo Tonight?

CSI and Grey's Anatomy added about 2 million fans each. Desperate Housewives fattened up by about 1 million.

This TV season, if you don't like your ratings, just wait a couple of weeks—they'll probably get better. And bigger.

While the weekly rankings released each Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research tell a sad story of sometimes double-digit viewership declines for the big four broadcast networks, the adjusted rankings, taking into account DVR use, tell a comparatively happier tale.

"The sky is not really falling," CBS' Ed Harrison said Tuesday.

Based on premiere-week stats, certainly, it's not falling as fast.

When Nielsen added in all the DVR users who caught CBS' CSI's eighth-season opener within seven days of its Sept. 28 air date, the crime show's average audience grew from 25.2 million to 27.3 million. ABC's Grey's Anatomy grew from 20.9 million to 23 million; ABC's Desperate Housewives, from 19.3 million to 20.3 million.

Other shows to bump up by a 1 million viewers or more include: NBC's Heroes (20.2 million, up from 17 million, a number that was already adjusted upward by folding in ratings from a repeat); Fox's House (20.2 million, up from 18.3 million); NBC's Bionic Woman (15.1 million, up from 13.9 million); ABC's Private Practice (15.5 million, up from 14.4 million); and CBS' Criminal Minds (13.9 million, up from 12.7 million).

"At the root of it," an ABC spokesman said, "people are just watching less live television."

Last fall nearly 95 percent of all network TV was watched live, per one stat, meaning if you wanted to watch CSI, you more than likely planted yourself on the couch at 9 p.m. on a Thursday. This fall, live viewing is down to 86.4 percent, meaning more of you are watching CSI at 12:30 a.m. on a Saturday, or whatever other free moment your life allows.

The trend toward increased DVR usage comes as DVR devices, such as TiVo, are now in 20 percent of TV homes, compared to 8.5 percent last fall, research shows. (Online viewing is on the rise, too—16 percent of U.S. homes now catch TV shows on the Web, a new study shows, but Nielsen hasn't yet added those eyeballs into its weekly rankings.)

As the numbers show, the biggest DVR beneficiaries are high-profile series that air opposite each other, à la CSI versus Grey's Anatomy, and Bionic Woman versus Private Practice versus Criminal Minds.

DVRs are less effective at helping shows that are meant to be viewed live, and probably in sports bars. NBC's Sunday Night Football and ABC's Dancing with the Stars barely inched upward after DVR playback was added in.

Older-skewing shows don't seem to enjoy as big a boost, either. Not that CBS' Shark (12 million, up from 11.3 million) wasn't grateful that 700,000 of its premiere-week fans joined the 21st century.

DVRs also aren't a cure-all for a show that nobody's watching, anytime, anywhere or with any technology. The premiere of CW's Sunday night time-slot filler, Online Nation, averaged 690,000 viewers in the regular weekly rankings, and added just 7,000 viewers in the adjusted rankings.

Overall, network viewership is still in decline, but the TiVo nation is helping ease the way down. When DVR playback was factored into the four big networks' premiere-week numbers, nobody was down more than 6 percent in total viewers from last fall.

The networks will take any non-terrible news they can get.

"It's not like people aren't watching," Harrison said. "They're just watching it on their own schedule."

Here are the regular, old non-adjusted ratings highlights for the TV week ended Sunday, per Nielsen Media Research stats:

• CSI (first place, 19.8 million) was TV's most watched show; Grey's Anatomy (third place, 19 million) was TV's highest rated show among 18- to 49-year-olds.
• Take that, Mandy Patinkin. The resurgent Criminal Minds (ninth place, 14.6 million) pulled about even with Bionic Woman (29th place, 10.3 million) in the 18-49 demo; Private Practice (18th place, 12.4 million) still reigned over both Wednesday rivals.
• ABC's new T.G.I.F. series, Women's Murder Club (25th place, 10.8 million), sucked the life out of CBS' vampire series, Moonlight (56th place, 7.1 million).
• In its weekly ratings recap, CBS had nothing nice to say about Moonlight, Cane (33rd place, 9.2 million) or The Big Bang Theory (43rd place, 8.4 million). The CW kept its own counsel on its Monday night comedies, while Fox decided if you don't have anything nice to say about K-Ville (81st place, 5.3 million) don't anything at all. NBC looked and looked until it found a bright side to Journeyman (60th place, 6.9 million): "Up 7 percent in 18-49 versus NBC's May 2007 sweep average in [the 10 p.m. Monday] time period."
• NBC's The Office (35th place, 8.9 million) continued to crash the Top 10 among 18- to 49-year-olds; ABC's Big Shots (40th place, 8.5 million) found its way back into the Top 25 in the demo. 
• ABC's Cavemen (59th place, 7 million) had a rough sophomore week; its network kin, Men in Trees (58th place, 7.1 million) had a rough start to its sophomore season.
• Maybe fans of ABC's Pushing Daisies (30th place, 10.3 million) were so busy watching the first episode on TiVo that they didn't get around to the second episode. The show was down about 3 million viewers from its premiere.
• The Friday night tie-in thing isn't really working for NBC's Friday Night Lights (77th place, 5.5 million).
• Cable's TBS got a bigger bang out a Yankees-Indians division-series playoff game (9.2 million) than Fox got out either of the first two Red Sox-Indians league championship games (37th place, 8.8 million for Game 2; 50th place, 7.4 million for Game 1).
• At least Fox had the wisdom to pass off baseball's National League Championship Series to TBS. The marquee matchup between the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks did all right--for cable, save for Friday's extra-inning contest that started at 10:12 p.m. ET, and ended, rough estimate, 26 hours later. That game, which averaged 3.3 million viewers, did all right--for late-night TV.
• Elsewhere in cable, the Disney Channel had the top-rated non-sports show, the Mowry Twins' TV movie Twitches Too (7 million), and the top-rated series, the premiere of the new comedy Wizards of Waverly Place (5.9 million).
• Viewers don't love VH1's I Love New York 2 (3 million) as much as last season, when it debuted before 4.4 million.
• USA got about as much performance from a Law & Order: SVU rerun (3.2 million) as it did from an all-new Law & Order: Criminal Intent (3.4 million).

Overall, CBS scored a win as the most watched network (12.4 million), and a statistical tie with ABC as the highest rated network among 18- to 49-year-olds.

ABC finished second in viewers (11 million), followed by NBC (8.1 million) and Fox (7.8 million).

The Women's 18-34 Network, formally known as the CW, averaged 3 million viewers of all shapes and genders, and got top cable ratings out of America's Top Model (80th place, 5.4 million) and Smallville (84th place, 4.8 million).

In actual cable, baseball boosted TBS to another weekly prime-time win (3.6 million). Disney Channel (3.4 million) and ESPN (3.2 million) rounded out the top three.

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

1. CSI, CBS, 19.8 million viewers
2. Dancing with the Stars (Monday), ABC, 19.6 million viewers
3. Grey's Anatomy, ABC, 19 million viewers
4. Desperate Housewives, ABC, 18.9 million viewers
5. House, Fox, 18 million viewers
6. 60 Minutes, CBS, 17.2 million viewers
7. Dancing with the Stars (Tuesday), ABC, 16.4 million viewers
8. NCIS, CBS, 16.36 million viewers
9. Criminal Minds, CBS, 14.6 million viewers
10. CSI: Miami, CBS, 14.5 million viewers