The Eye averaged 15.7 million viewers for the week.

NEW YORK (AP) – CBS easily outdistanced its rivals in viewership last week and even beat NBC among viewers aged 18 to 49 to win that demographic for the first time during November sweeps since at least 1987, Nielsen Media Research said Tuesday.

Advertisers court those young viewers and CBS, which generally has an older audience, isn’t often where they’re found.

“CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” was the week’s most popular program by a whopping margin of more than 8 million viewers over its closest rival.

Other good news abounded: CBS’ Elizabeth Smart TV movie on Sunday did better than NBC’s competing Jessica Lynch flick; “Survivor” outdistanced “Friends”; “60 Minutes” was the week’s most popular newsmagazine, beating Barbara Walters’ Martha Stewart interview; and the Country Music Association awards drew a healthy 20.7 million viewers, its best showing since 1993.

ABC’s “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” had its biggest audience ever in the first episode without John Ritter.

For the week, CBS averaged 15.7 million viewers (10.0 rating, 16 share), NBC had 11.7 million (7.8, 13), ABC 10.3 million (6.7, 11), Fox 6.2 million (4.0, 6), the WB 4.3 million (2.8, 4), UPN 3.6 million (2.4, 4) and Pax TV 1.1 million (0.7, 1).

NBC’s “Nightly News” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 10.9 million viewers (7.6 rating, 15 share). ABC’s “World News Tonight” had 10.4 million (7.2, 14) and the “CBS Evening News” had 8.3 million (5.9, 11).

A ratings point represents 1,084,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 108.4 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Nov. 3-9, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 29.6 million; “Survivor: Pearl Islands,” CBS, 21.4 million; “Country Music Association Awards,” CBS, 20.7 million; “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter,” ABC, 20.5 million; “Friends,” NBC, 20.4 million; “ER,” NBC, 20 million; “CSI: Miami,” CBS, 19.5 million; “Everybody Loves Raymond,” CBS, 18.6 million; “Without a Trace,” CBS, 18.5 million; “Friends” special, NBC, 18.2 million.

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