Hilton, Spears' Snub Trashes 'Billboard' Ratings, NBC Has Heroic Monday

A heavyweight tag-team can wrestle down the best of music shows--even Fox's "Billboard Music Awards."

Paris Hilton didn't like the script, while her new best friend Britney Spears decided earlier that an appearance on the show wasn't in the cards. That high-profile double-team rejection hurt the music show, causing ratings to sink almost 20% versus a year ago, to a Nielsen preliminary 2.7 for adults 18-49. Last year's broadcast was registered at 3.2.

Hilton was slated to be the show's host, but pulled out at the last moment, claiming that some script remarks would have been too cutting toward some people. Bottom line: the show went host-less. While Hilton-Spears are a nice branding tag team for Fox, the "BMA" was probably more hurt by the new boss on Monday night: NBC's "Heroes" and its sidekick "Deal or No Deal."

With less competition coming at NBC than during the November sweeps period, the network actually improved at 8 p.m. with "Deal or No Deal" to a 5.0 rating. Then at 9 p.m., "Heroes" worked its magic again, coming in as the night's highest-rated TV show--earning a 6.5 rating.

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NBC finished out the evening with a 3.0 for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"--slightly off its performances of recent weeks.

Still, it was enough to give NBC a relatively easy victory for the evening, coming in at a 4.8 rating/12 share. A rating point and half back was ABC with a 3.3/8. CBS was in third with a 2.9/7. Fox was next at 2.7/7. Univision at 1.6/4 and CW at 0.8/2 rounded out the top six networks.

ABC did make some improvements in the 9 p.m. hour with the return of "Supernanny," which posted a 4.0 rating among viewers 18-49. This was somewhat better than the recent numbers for "The Bachelor: Rome." ABC did have some help here. CBS was in repeats for "Two and a Half Men," which earned a 3.4, and "Old Christine," which posted a 2.8.

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