Ratings Chart Attack!

Fox’s premiere of “Sit Down, Shut Up” failed to drive as many viewers to sit down and watch as other animated comedies, while original drama episodes on ABC led the network to a win.

Fox’s “Sit Down” scored a 2.3 rating/6 share among adults 18-49 and 5.2 million viewers in its 8:30 p.m. premiere, according to preliminary Nielsen Media Research figures. Last night’s episode was down 23% from its lead-in, a new episode of “The Simpsons” (3.0/9, 6.5 million). “Sit Down” was down 15% from the network’s time-period average for the previous four weeks (mostly repeats). In the 9 p.m. hour, “Family Guy” scored a 3.8/9 (7.4 million), down 10% from its most recent original three weeks ago, and “American Dad” capped off the night with a 3.0/7 (5.6 million). Fox opened the night with an “American Dad” repeat, followed by the time-period premiere of “King of the Hill” (1.6/5, 3.3 million).

ABC led the night overall, with new episodes of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (2.2/7, 7.6 million), an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” repeat, “Desperate Housewives” (4.7/11, 13.6 million) and “Brothers and Sisters” (3.3/9, 9.6 million). “Housewives” was down 6% from its last original episode in March, and down 15% from its season-to-date performance, but it still ranked as the No. 1 show of the night. “Brothers” was down just one-tenth of a rating point from its last original airing.

NBC’s presentation of the Miss USA Pageant (1.4/4, 5 million) was down 18% from last year’s telecast and was the lowest-rated pageant since ratings became available electronically 18 years ago. A new episode of “The Celebrity Apprentice” (3.1/8, 8.3 million) was up a bit over last week’s episode.

On CBS, the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie “The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler” (1.5/4, 9.8 million) was down 32% from the most recent film in the series, “Loving Leah,” earlier this year, but flat with last year’s “Sweet Nothing in My Ear.” The film came in third in the two-hour time period. “60 Minutes” (1.8/6, 11.9 million) was on the low side, while “The Amazing Race” (3.0/8, 10.4 million) was about average with recent telecasts.

The CW aired a repeat of “Jericho” and the film “At First Sight.”

For the night: ABC led the way (3.1/8, 9.6 million), followed by Fox (2.5/7, 5.1 million), NBC (2.3/6, 6.7 million), CBS (2.0/5, 10.5 million) and The CW (0.3/1, 0.9 million).