• by Wayne Friedman , April 22, 2008

Don't write off the season just yet. But the writers' strike interruption may have caused ABC and other networks to lose some steam--at least on Sunday.

Another eye-opening low-rated Sunday night for ABC had one of its big shows, "Desperate Housewives," in a serious 25% decline from its season average to a Nielsen preliminary 5.5 number against 18-49 viewers. That would be a series low.

Last week, "Housewives" returned with an original episode, and a then-series-low 5.7 rating. The two shows flanking "Housewives" this week, "Oprah's Big Give" at 8 p.m. (a 3.2 rating) and "Brothers & Sisters" at 10 p.m. ( a 3.6 rating), also under-performed. On a positive note, both "Give" and "Brothers" won their respective time periods.

All this gave ABC a 3.6 rating average for the night. But its network competitors didn't come close. Fox was second at 2.0/6; then CBS at 1.7/5; NBC at 1.3/4; Univision, 0.9/2; and CW, 0.5/1.

The better performers on the night included a pair of 8 p.m. shows--BS' hour-long "Big Brother" and Fox's repeats of "The Simpsons"--where both networks averaged 2.3 ratings, coming in second to "Give."

Fox's repeats of "Family Guy" and "American Dad" at 9 p.m. had 2.2 ratings--less than half the numbers of "Housewives."

NBC didn't get much push from airing USA Network shows again this week. NBC had 1.3 for "Monk" at 8 p.m. and a 1.1 for "Psych" at 9 p.m.--on par with numbers tallied last Sunday.