• by Wayne Friedman , March 30, 2012

With around eight weeks left of the 2011-2012 television season, Fox is still leading the pack -- but in a much narrower race than a year ago. Through March 25, 27 weeks of the season, Fox is at a Nielsen average 3.3 live-plus-same-day rating among 18- to-49-year-old viewers, down 7% from the same time frame a year ago. 

This is partly the result of lower “American Idol” ratings versus its 2011 edition. On the positive side, Fox has had good success with new comedy “New Girl.”

Gaining on Fox is CBS -- now at a 3.1 average rating, up 4% versus a year ago. CBS has seen strong improving results from new shows “Person of Interest” and “2 Broke Girls."

Though NBC continues to have trouble in many areas of the prime-time schedule, it has had major highlights and viewer improvements from “The Voice” and  “Sunday Night Football." All this helped lift its fortunes by 8% so far this season to a 2.6 rating -- good for third place, currently.

ABC also improved, but not as much as NBC, rising 2%. Rookie hit “Once Upon A Time” and other good new performers, such as “Revenge,” are some of the big news here. One the downside, “Dancing with the Stars” and other older scripted shows continue to underperform versus a year ago.

Apart from “Vampire Diaries," CW also might look for better answers. Right now among the broader viewing pool of 18-49 viewers, it is down nearly 20% to a 0.8 rating number.

In terms of pure popularity -- total average viewers -- CBS continues to be ahead with 12.01 million viewers; Fox, 9.04 million; ABC, 8.27 million; NBC, 7.72 million; Univision, 3.56 million; and CW, 1.62 million.