Maybe Donald Trump should go back to feuding with Martha Stewart.

The latest edition of Trump's Apprentice, which premiered Sunday in the wake of its host's war of words with Rosie O'Donnell, fired up 9.1 million viewers, down 6 percent from the show's fifth-season premiere, Nielsen Media Research stats show.

By comparison, the Apprentice's fifth-season debut, which came in the wake of its host's tiff with Stewart, was sampled by 9.7 million, off only 2 percent from the previous season opener.

In short: The Apprentice, which has been trending downward since first-season hopeful Omarosa took her brand of reality-TV villainy to various other outlets, lost fewer viewers when Trump picked a conveniently timed fight with Stewart than with O'Donnell.

All in all, NBC wasn't complaining, and Trump wasn't conceding.

Sunday's Apprentice (46th place), airing 9:30 p.m.-11 p.m., got beat but not killed by its competition at 10 p.m.: CBS' Without a Trace (ninth place, 14.2 million) and ABC's Brothers & Sisters (20th place, 11.9 million). Among coveted 18-to-49-year-old viewers, The Apprentice actually drew higher ratings than Without a Trace. (Brothers & Sisters attracted more young adults than either show.)

The way things worked out, Trump seemed to get about one viewer per headline generated by his well-publicized rants against O'Donnell, who gave the mogul an opening when she criticized him on the Dec. 20 edition of The View.

In the context of the O'Donnell-Trump feud, "criticized" means O'Donnell called Trump a "hot bag of wind," brushed her hair to one side, à la Trump's infamous 'do, and broached the "B" word, for bankruptcy. A flurry of anti-O'Donnell sound bites from Trump ensued, as did an on-air clarification from The View noting that the businessman has never filed for personal bankruptcy.

Nearly three weeks after the initial skirmish, Trump is still firing off statements (he called Rosie's rant "maniacal and foolish" in a Tuesday missive), and the women from The View are still dealing with the fallout, including Trump's assertion that View maven Barbara Walters wants O'Donnell off the talk show.

Trump got more viewers but fewer headlines after he called out Stewart in February 2006 as a "terrible" host of her failed Apprentice franchise. (Stewart, for her part, called Trump "mean-spirited," and blamed him for her show's failure. She did not brush her hair to one side.)

No word on whom Trump will do battle with next fall should The Apprentice remain hired.

Other ratings highlights for the TV week ended Sunday:

• The premiere of NBC's Grease: The One That I Want (25th place, 11.5 million) did a solid job of acquainting Americans with Britain's latest nasty-judge export.
• The canceled O.C. (100th place, 3.9 million) hit a season high among presumably wistful teens.
• In its CW debut, Beauty and the Geek (88th place, 4.9 million) maintained the size of its WB audience. 
• CBS' Shark (eighth place, 14.416 million) slipped into the Top 10, but couldn't slip past a Grey's Anatomy rerun (39th place, 9.8 million) in the battle for young adults.
• After all these decades, Fox's The Simpsons (23rd place, 11.6 million) remains demographically desirable, finishing sixth for the week among 18-to-49-year-olds.
• Compared to Big Day (averaging fewer than 5 million viewers each episode), Knights of Prosperity (62nd place, 7.2 million) looks like a comedy hit for ABC.
• Courteney Cox's Dirt (3.7 million) got off to a fast start for FX as the most-watched cable series not named Hannah Montana or The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
• On ABC, David Arquette's In Case of Emergency (71st place, 6.3 million) was watched by millions more viewers than his wife's show, but it's the not -being-watched-by-millions-more-viewers-than-the-Wednesday-edition-of-NBC's-Deal-or-No-Deal (26th place, 11.3 million) that counts.
•  The zillionth Disney Channel repeat of High School Musical (4.5 million) still had enough zip to emerge as cable's most-watched movie.  
• Fox's presentation of the Sugar Bowl (seventh place, 14.417 million) was the most-watched college football game; ESPN2's presentation of the International Bowl (1.5 million viewers) was the least-watched.
• Football madness finally seemed to rub off on a perked-up Friday Night Lights (72nd place, 6.3 million) on NBC.

In the network races, CBS "place[d] in a virtual tie for first in viewers," which means it actually placed second (11.46 million) behind NBC (11.5 million).

Benefitting from its prime-time NFL playoff game (first place, 26.8 million), NBC also won the week among 18-to-49-year-olds, edging out Fox, which benefited from its slate of college bowl games.

Fox ran third in viewers, with 10.7 million.

ABC, which lost both the NFL and college football's Bowl Championship Series last year, ran a distant fourth in both categories, averaging 8 million viewers.

The CW, which never had football to begin with, did its thing, pulling in 3 million viewers.

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

1. NFL Playoff Game (Dallas vs. Seattle), NBC, 26.8 million viewers
2. CSI, CBS, 26.1 million viewers
3. NFL Playoff Pregame Show (Dallas vs. Seattle), NBC, 20.3 million viewers
4. Desperate Housewives, ABC, 18.7 million viewers
5. NFL Playoff Postgame Show (New York Giants vs. Philadelphia), Fox, 16.8 million viewers
6. Law & Order: SVU, NBC, 15.2 million viewers
7. Sugar Bowl (Notre Dame vs. LSU), 14.417 million viewers
8. Shark, CBS, 14.416 million viewers
9. Without a Trace, CBS, 14.2 million viewers
10. Cold Case, CBS, 14.1 million viewers