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‘Brothers & Sisters’ Brings ABC Fourth Win of New Season

ABC took top honors in the network race on Sunday, thanks to a strong debut for Brothers & Sisters and to its workhorse, Desperate Housewives.

Brothers & Sisters, whose cast includes Calista Flockhart and Sally Field, averaged a 6.2 in adults 18-49 according to Nielsen overnights, making it the highest-rated show of the new season, writes Media Life. While it dropped 18 percent from its first half hour to its second half hour, and lost 35 percent of its Housewives lead-in, it still finished ahead of CBS’s Without a Trace and NBC’s Sunday Night Football in the 10 p.m. time slot.

Desperate Housewives was up 4 percent over last season’s average of 9.1 and dominated its time slot, though it was down more than 4 million viewers from last season’s premiere. ABC finished the night with a 6.4 rating and 16 share, well ahead of NBC’s 4.6. Sunday was ABC’s fourth win (Saturday and Thursday nights plus a tie on Tuesday) since the new season began last week.

Fox took third for the night among 18-49s with a 4.4/11, followed by CBS with a 3.6/9, the CW at 1.1/3 and Univision at 0.9/2.