CBS held on to its slim lead in the November sweeps through Monday, Nov. 21, in the adults 18 to 49 demographic while dominating its competitors in total viewers.

CBS scored an average 4.5 rating in adults 18 to 49 for the first 19 days of the sweeps, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was ahead of ABC, with a 4.3 rating, as well as NBC (3.2), Fox (3.0), UPN (1.6) and The WB (1.5).

The order of networks was the same in total viewers, with CBS building a bigger gap between itself and ABC. CBS has garnered an average 14.7 million viewers, a full 3 million above second-place ABC.

But in terms of growth from last year, ABC is the sole network to show improvement from sweeps November 2004, with the other networks either flat or down.

ABC was up 10 percent in the demo, while Fox and UPN were flat from the same period last November. CBS dropped 2 percent, The WB was down 6 percent, and NBC dropped 22 percent from its year-ago sweeps average.

While CBS’s leading status has been fueled by its “CSI” franchise and other veteran performers, one recent programming change for a debuting series has also added to the network’s success. Three weeks ago the network moved the Tuesday night 10 p.m. (ET) legal drama “Close to Home,” which has been struggling in the ratings, to Fridays at 9 p.m.

On Nov. 18 “Home” scored a 3.2 rating in the demo, matching its debut performance in the time period the week before. The series won its time period both weeks and outperformed the season-to-date average of the previous time period holder, “Threshold.”

Last Tuesday “Threshold” moved to “Home’s” old time period and scored a 2.1 in the demo, CBS’s worst 10 p.m. performance for the season. “Threshold” is not expected to get a back nine episode order, and is unlikely to return to the air.



Holiday Lineups

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, full results through the third week of sweeps were not expected until today. On Thursday, Nov. 24, most of the networks were scheduled to run original programming, but ABC was set to air the animated classic “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and the Pixar feature “Finding Nemo.” Fox was set to pre-empt “The O.C.” and “Reunion” for the live-action feature “Daddy Day Care.”

Originals were also on the schedules for this past Friday and Sunday, with repeats on most of the networks, Fox’s reality lineup and a Notre Dame-Stanford game on ABC dominating Saturday.