• by Wayne Friedman , October 3, 2007

There's another new season on Sunday night for broadcast TV. But it had the same old look and results--more or less.

ABC won the first Sunday of the new season with a Nielsen preliminary live program plus same day 5.0 rating among 18-49 viewers--spearheaded by its still top-lined "Desperate Housewives," which earned a night-leading 7.4 number. NBC was right behind with a 4.6/12, with its "Sunday Night Football" grabbing a 5.5 rating.

That was the good news for ABC. The bad news is that the network is down some 22% in 18-49 viewer ratings on the night, versus its 6.4 rating of a year ago. All three of this year's season premieres--"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," "Housewives" and "Brothers & Sisters"--are off last year's debut numbers.

Still, "Housewives" and "Sisters" were up from their year-ago season finales--"Housewives" up slightly, 0.2 of a rating point from a 7.2 number, and "Sisters" 0.6 of a rating point higher from its 4.5 number. Some of that bump could be due to a heightened interest in the show now that cast member Sally Field won an Emmy.

Good and bad news for CBS: Its decision to shift "Without a Trace" from Sunday at 10 p.m. to its original Thursday at 10 p.m. has benefited big-time. The bad is that moving "Shark" to 10 p.m. on Sunday resulted in a weak 2.7 rating--contributing to the network's distant third-place finish. It ended the night tied with Fox at a 3.2 rating/8 share.

Fox also felt the brunt of heavy Sunday competition this week. Those down mid-4 to 5 ratings that it posted a week ago for its comedies--a day before the season started--went lower this time around. For example, "The Simpsons" took in a 4.2 rating, and "King of the Hill" earned a 3.5 number.

Behind the top four networks was Univision, fifth at 0.9/2 and CW, last at a 0.4/1.