First 4 games of the World Series help Fox network score a ratings home run

NEW YORK - The World Series gave the Fox network world-class ratings last week as the New York Yankees squared off against the Philadelphia Phillies in four much-watched games.

Fox can thank baseball for a huge average audience of 14.69 million viewers (8.8 rating, 14 share).

Game 4 was the most-watched program in prime time, followed by Game 1, Game 2 and Fox's pre-game show for Game 4, according to Nielsen Co.

But other networks weren't sleeping. ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" ranked fifth for the week, and CBS' scripted dramas "NCIS," "The Mentalist" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" helped round out the Top 10.

Fox's Game 3 of the World Series ranked ninth.

The first four games, averaging 19 million viewers, far outpaced Fox's 13 million average viewership in 2008 for the first four games of the World Series pitting the Phillies against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Well behind Fox last week but still strong, CBS averaged 9.84 million viewers (6.2 rating, 10 share). ABC was right behind with 9.45 million (6.0 rating, 10 share). NBC had 5.59 million (3.5 rating, 6 share), the CW had 2.24 million (1.4 rating, 2 share) and ION Television had 870,000 (0.6 rating, 1 share).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.25 million viewers (1.7 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 980,000 (0.5 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 860,000 (0.4 rating, 1 share) and Azteca had 240,000 (0.1 rating, 0 share).

NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.50 million viewers (5.6 rating, 11 share). ABC's "World News" was second with 7.95 million (5.3 rating, 10 share) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.88 million viewers (4.0 rating, 8 share).

A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Oct. 26 to Nov. 1, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: World Series Game 4 (Sunday), Fox, 22.76 million; World Series Game 1 (Wednesday), Fox, 19.51 million; World Series Game 2 (Thursday), Fox, 18.90 million; World Series Pre-Game, Game 4 (Sunday), Fox, 17.82 million; "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 17.38 million; "NCIS," CBS, 16.70 million; "The OT," Fox, 16.61 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 15.53 million; World Series Game 3 (Saturday), Fox, 15.40 million; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 15.24 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.