• by Wayne Friedman , November 28, 2006

The song remained the same for Sunday-night leadership--still belonging to ABC. But the networks next in line--Fox, NBC, and CBS--witnessed a minor reshuffling of sorts.

Fox perked up its comedies from huge NFL game coverage at the start of the evening. The conclusions of two close games--New England-Chicago and Tennessee-New York Giants--charged up Fox's sitcoms with a big preliminary rating in adults 18-49. That gave the four Fox comedies above-average numbers for the night--"The Simpsons" grabbed a 5.0/12; "American Dad" took in a 4.1/9; "Family Guy" put up a 4.8/11; and "The War at Home" grabbed a 3.4/8.

For the night, Fox came in second with 4.9/12 to ABC's leading ratings of 5.4/13.

NBC, which been solidly in second place in recent weeks, pulled an average 5.7/13 among 18-49 viewers for its "Sunday Night Football," featuring the Indianapolis Colts-Philadelphia Eagles. Overall, that put NBC just below Fox for the night with a 4.7/12.

Unlike Fox, CBS didn't gain from any NFL overrun, as it had in recent weeks. That pushed down "60 Minutes" and the rest of the network's Sunday night schedule--"60 Minutes" took in a 2.4/6; "Amazing Race" had a 3.3/8; and the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie "Candles on Bay Street" drifted to a 2.8/7 in 18-49--lower than the two crime dramas it replaced for the night, "Cold Case" and "Without a Trace."

All that gave CBS a warm, fuzzy, and small 2.8/7 for the last night of the holiday weekend, putting it in fourth place for the night. But, as usual, CBS scored big with total viewers, at 12.3 million--second only to ABC's leading 15.2 million.

ABC's consistently strong lineup had "Desperate Housewives" again leading the evening with an 8.5 rating, the top network show of the night. Its 8 p.m. "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" earned a healthy 5.1 rating.

ABC gave its rookie show "Brothers & Sisters" the night off, bringing back "Boston Legal" to its old Sunday night 10 p.m. time slot. The show did well, earning a 4.6/12--well above its average for the season. Still, "Legal"'s numbers were less than "Brothers"' 5.5 number the week before.

The CW finished with a 1.3/3 for the evening, with Univision just behind at a 1.2/3.