• by Wayne Friedman , January 24, 2007

In the first real battle pitting "Heroes" against "24," it was the supernatural powers of the NBC show that won out.

NBC's "Heroes" scored a 6.6 rating/15 share among adult 18-49 viewers, while Fox's "24" averaged a 5.4/12. But that wasn't the whole story. "24" was much closer among all viewers--just 430,000 behind the 14.9 million "Heroes" tally.

Still, for "24" it was a loss, of sorts. The show was down 13% from the 6.2 it averaged in the Monday 9 p.m. time slot the previous week. "Heroes" numbers came in pretty much at the same level as December, when it aired its last original episode.

CBS should also be mentioned, as its comedies continued to score well. The network's "Two and a Half Men" came in at 4.8/11, and "The New Adventures of Old Christine" earned a 4.1/9.

All this resulted in a tight race among the three networks with NBC finishing first, averaging a 5.0 rating/12 share. Fox was just behind with a 4.8/11; CBS was third at 4.6/11. Further down the list, ABC landed in fourth at 3.2/8, followed by Univision at 1.9/5 and CW at 1.1/3.

ABC's best for the evening came with a 3.7/8 for "Supernanny" at 9 p.m. and a 3.5/9 for "Wife Swap" at 8 p.m. Its "What About Brian" show at 10 p.m. continued to struggle among 18-49 viewers with a 2.5/6--although ABC executives recently noted the show regularly does better than its competitors in the time slot among specific female demographics.