• by Wayne Friedman , August 20, 2009

It was a night where a mother of 14 couldn't get Fox from behind the eight ball.

A two-hour Fox special, "Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage," on Wednesday night -- about Nadya Suleman, mother of 6, who then had octuplets -- earned a Nielsen preliminary 1.6 rating/5 share among adult 18-49 viewers. All that landed Fox in third place for the night.

One surprise winner looks to be Univision. Preliminary numbers have the Spanish-language network in a virtual tie with NBC, at a 1.8 rating/5 share, among 18-49 viewers. NBC had a 1.8/6. But Univision easily took the crown among younger viewers 18-34, earning a 2.0/7.

Still, it wasn't a night for too much celebration for any broadcast network -- none got over the 2 rating mark among 18-49 viewers. After NBC, Univision and Fox, ABC tallied a 1.6/5 among 18-49 viewers; CBS took a 1.4/4 and CW finished with a 0.4/1. NBC did win in overall viewers with a scant average of 7.5 million. After that, ABC and CBS came in at a virtual tie with 5.7 million viewers.

NBC had the best-performing show of the night, this summer's high-rated, "America's Got Talent," which earned a 2.4/7 (rating/share) with adults 18-49. But this was its lowest rating of the summer.