• by Wayne Friedman , April 14, 2009

CBS doesn't need NCAA basketball to score big ratings on Mondays, as its comedies continue to show viewer strength.

Coming off a week from its NCAA College basketball game, CBS' "Two and a Half Men" scored with a strong Nielsen preliminary 5.2 rating/13 share among 18-49 viewers -- the highest-rated show of the night, besting ABC's big "Dancing with the Stars" during the 9 p.m. period (at a 5.0/12).

CSB' other comedies scored well -- improving on their most recent original episode performances. This includes "The Big Bang Theory," which rose to a 3.8/11 at 8 p.m. "How I Met Your Mother" climbed to a 4.0/11 at 8:30 p.m., while "Rules of Engagement" earned a top-notch 4.0/10 at 9:30 p.m. (It got the benefit of "Men"s strong lead-out numbers.)

All this took a toll on Fox, which ran neck and neck with CBS for the night, coming in just slightly behind CBS at a 4.1/10 to CBS' 4.1/11 among 18-49 viewers. Fox did win among 18-34 viewers, a somewhat smaller demographic revenue-wise for national TV advertisers, with a 3.5/10 to CBS' 3.1/9.

Fox's "House" won at 8 p.m. with a 4.5/12, but dropped a little week-to-week. Also down was Fox's other Monday night drama, "24," which landed in third place for the highly competitive 9 p.m. hour, reaching a 3.6/9.

ABC also declined week-to-week, primarily from lower numbers for "Dancing with the Stars" at 4.6/11 and from a slipping "Castle" at 10 p.m. -- which only managed a 2.0/6, coming in at third place behind time-period-winning show "CSI: Miami" from CBS (3.8/10) and "Medium" from NBC (2.7/7). At 9:30 p.m., another new ABC show, "Surviving Suburbia," also was trending down from its premiere to a 2.8/7.

Lost in the glare of the other big network shows, NBC actually witnessed improvement for all of its Monday shows.

"Chuck" grew slightly to a 2.3/6 from 2.1/5 the week before; "Heroes" climbed out from its lowest numbers ever the week before to a 3.2/8; and "Medium" rose to a 2.7/7 from a 2.2/5. Overall, NBC ended the night with a 2.8/7, up from a 2.3/6 the week before.

For the night overall, Univision was next with a 1.8/5, followed by CW at a 0.4/1.