• by Wayne Friedman , October 26, 2007

Fox's game one of the World Series between the Red Sox and Rockies took a bite out of many top network shows last night--even with the game being a blowout.

Shows such as ABC's "Pushing Daisies" dropped 14%; NBC's "Life" was off 11%; CBS' "CSI: NY" was off 5%; CBS' "Criminal Minds" slipped 3%; and NBC's "Bionic Woman" also dropped 3%.

A big Nielsen Media Research 5.8 rating/16 share for the Fox baseball game was some 60% higher than from game one of the World Series a year ago. Fox easily--and expectedly--won the night with a 5.9/16 on the night.

Some of the more women-centric shows resisted the move to baseball--CW's duo "America's Next Top Model" and "Gossip Girl" maintained their average 1.8/5 from a week ago. ABC's "Private Practice"--another heavy women-targeted show--improved 5% to 4.5/11.

NBC's new mentalist reality show "Phenomenon" earned a 3.0/8--on par with the 3.1/9 rating for "Deal of No Deal" of a week ago. And from the we-try-harder department, the much-maligned "Kid Nation" continues to quietly improve. The CBS show climbed again to a 2.4/7.

Far behind Fox was ABC with a 3.6/9; then CBS at a 3.4/9; NBC at a 3.0/8; CW with 1.8/5; and MyNetworkTV with a 0.3/1.