Television's champions for the season that concludes Wednesday will be familiar: the CBS network and Fox's "American Idol" juggernaut.
CBS' status as the nation's most-watched prime-time network for the seventh time in the past eight years isn't in doubt. The network averaged nearly 2 million viewers a night more than Fox, the second-place finisher, in results through Sunday night, the Nielsen Co. said.
Fox's "American Idol" was the nation's favorite program for the seventh year in a row. The show's Tuesday edition averaged 24.9 million viewers, and Wednesday had 23.4 million. Next came ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" at 19.7 million, although the dance show has beaten "Idol" three of the past four weeks.
The most popular scripted program of the year was CBS's "NCIS," its first such victory in seven seasons on the air.
Two of the three most popular new programs followed "NCIS" on CBS's Tuesday night schedule: "NCIS: Los Angeles" and "The Good Wife." That makes CBS's Tuesday the most popular night of TV during the week. CBS's "Undercover Boss" was the third.
CBS, NBC and Fox each had more prime-time viewers this season than the last one. That's a tribute to the power of sports as an attraction; take sports out of the equation, and each network saw its audience shrink this season. NBC was up 5 percent, for example, but without the Winter Olympics, the network's viewership is down 8 percent.
Football games were particularly powerful, with CBS's airing of the Super Bowl ranking as the most-watched TV event ever.
Fox is second, ABC third and NBC fourth in the season rankings, the pecking order not expected to change over the next two days.
Last week, "Dancing With the Stars" narrowly beat "American Idol" as the most popular show on the air, and "Lost" sneaked back into the top 10 with Sunday's final episode. That was good news for ABC, which beat Fox to be the top-rated network among its target demographic of 18- to 49-year-olds for the first time ever on a week during which "American Idol" was televised.