• by Wayne Friedman , August 24, 2009

With a couple of weeks to go, summer's TV viewing looks to be a rerun of the 2008-2009 regular TV season: Cable is up; broadcast is down; and CBS is holding its own. All ad-supported cable networks are up to a culminated 53.1 million viewers versus 50.0 million a year ago, from May 21 through August 14. Broadcast is down, in part, because of unfavorable comparisons to the Olympics of 2008.

But stripping the Olympics, NBC probably would have been down anyway, according to analysts. Even without the Olympics this year, ABC, Fox and CW are all down around 600,000 viewers each versus a year ago.

CBS was the only broadcast network to grow in overall average prime-time viewers to 6.65 million from 6.47 million a year ago. Fox is averaging 4.91 million from 5.70 million; ABC sunk to 4.75 million from 5.34 million. The CW is at 996,000 from its 1.65 million a year ago.

In regard to 18-49 viewers, however, no broadcasters were spared. ABC is at 1.89 million viewers, down from 2.28 million; CBS slipped the least to 1.81 million from 1.93 million; NBC lost big chunks due to the Olympics, 1.82 million from 3.34 million; and CW dropped to 478,000 from 759,000.

All ad-supported cable, meanwhile, grew to average 21.6 million from 20.5 million among 18-49 viewers.

"For broadcast, there was a lack of new hits this summer," says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate research director for Horizon Media. "Cable continues to have more original series. It's not just a handful of cable networks."

Two of the biggest summer shows continued to be NBC's "America's Got Talent," which is averaging a 3.5 rating/10 share for its Tuesday edition at 9 p.m., and a 2.9/9 for its Wednesday edition at 9 p.m. Through eight episodes of a year ago, "Talent" had a 3.4/10.

Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance?" took in a 3.1/10 so far for its Thursday edition at 9 p.m., and a 3.0/10 for its Wednesday edition at 8 p.m. Last year, the show took in a 3.1/10 for Thursday and a 3.3/10 for Wednesday.