• by Wayne Friedman , July 13, 2009

A yawning July Sunday gave Fox -- with all its comedies in reruns -- the win. "Til Death," "American Dad," "The Simpsons," "King of the Hill," "Family Guy" "The Simpsons" combined for a sub 2 rating average among 18-49 viewers: a Nielsen preliminary 1.6 rating/5 share.

A slow moving Sunday was also apparent among younger viewers, with Fox the only network to rise above the 1 rating mark for 18-34. Fox had a 1.6/6.

Typical of Fox versus the other broadcast networks, it was way behind among average total viewers. This Sunday, CBS more than doubled Fox's viewership -- 6.6 million to Fox's 3.1 million. Fox only bested Univision, CW and MyNetworkTV.

Among those shows airing original episodes, CBS had a 2.0/6 for its "Big Brother 11." NBC offered a new sci-fi mini-series "Meteor" from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., which produced about half the numbers of "Brother," with a 1.1 rating/3 share. Earlier, an original episode of NBC's "Merlin" pulled in a 0.9/3.

Cable networks continued to launch new series this summer. Lifetime took advantage of a ho-hum Sunday viewing summer night with the debut of its "Drop Dead Diva" series at 9 p.m. It grabbed a healthy 2.8 million total viewers.

The show also scored its best results for an original scripted series among key women demographics since "Army Wives" debut two years ago, also in the summer time period. "Army Wives" followed "Diva" at 10 p.m., taking in 3.8 million total viewers, slightly improving some of its viewing results.

Among the key 18-49 viewers, CBS came in second place a 1.3/4; NBC and ABC tied at a 0.9/3. Univision had a 0.7/2, and CW was at a 0.3/1.