• by Wayne Friedman , September 30, 2008

The season premiere of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" may have calmed the hearts of some network executives concerned about overall ratings erosion--at least for one night.

The big top-rated show was only down 5% versus its premiere of a year ago--a Nielsen Media Research preliminary 7.0 rating/16 share among 18-49 viewers versus a 7.4 rating. "Housewives" declines were much less than the double-digit declines of other network heavyweight shows--most notably NBC's "Heroes," which tumbled 25%. Fox's "House" and ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" were also down substantially from a year ago.

ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" also benefited from the low erosion--just 0.4%--to a 4.8/12 rating as a lead-out from "Housewives."

Although ABC's "Housewives" was the top-rated show of the night, it was NBC that ruled the first Sunday night of the season--all thanks to a 6.1 rating/14 share from its "Sunday Night Football" game between Philadelphia and Chicago.

The game was the second-best-rated show of the night. The game improved in total viewers year-to-year to 15.9 million from 15.0 million the year before, when the Philadelphia Eagles played the New York Giants.

NBC led the night with a 5.6/14. ABC virtually tied Fox for second place with a 4.4/11--with ABC higher than Fox in overall viewers (12.5 million to 10.6 million).

Fox won among 18-34 viewers for the night, with a 5.2/12. The network's big comedies earned strong numbers, especially among broader viewers 18-49. "Family Guy" earned a solid 4.5/10 at 9 p.m., coming in third after "Housewives" and "Football." "The Simpsons" took a 4.4/12 at 8 p.m., coming in at second place in the time period.

CBS, for the most part, took a back seat for the night, averaging a 2.6/7. Its best came from an average performance from "The Amazing Race" with a 3.2/7. Its dramas--"Cold Case" (2.7/6) and "The Unit" (2.6/7)--pulled in fewer overall viewers.

Univision was less than half of CBS at 1.0/3 for the night, with its 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. editions of "Sangre di Mi Sangre" leading the way, each with a 1.2/3 rating. CW was sixth at 0.6/2, with reruns of "One Tree Hill" and "Privileged." New shows during CW's Sunday night time slots from Media Rights Capital will debut next week.