NEW YORK (AP) – The start of NBC’s 17-day Olympics cavalcade took a less-than-commanding position in the Nielsen rankings last week.

It wasn’t the Winter Games from Turin that seized first and second place in the ratings, but battling singers on Fox’s “American Idol” Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

After that came the forensics sleuths of CBS’ drama, “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” then the sexy docs of “Grey’s Anatomy” and the women of Wisteria Lane on “Desperate Housewives,” both ABC series.

NBC had to settle for a close sixth place for its Sunday prime-time Olympics coverage, seventh place for Saturday’s broadcast, and ninth place for Friday’s opening ceremony, according to Nielsen Media Research.

To no one’s surprise, the audience was substantially less than four years ago, when the Winter Olympics originated not from Italy but on American soil. Salt Lake City’s first-night pageantry in 2002 drew an audience of 45.6 million viewers, more than twice this year’s 22.17 million. NBC’s prime-time coverage for all the Salt Lake City games averaged 32 million viewers. Saturday’s and Sunday’s Olympics viewership was about 23.2 million.

Nonetheless, NBC won the week in prime time overall, averaging 15.6 million viewers (9.4 rating, 14 share), while CBS had 12.6 million (8.1 rating, 13 share), ABC had 11.9 million (7.6 rating, 12 share) and Fox had 11.0 million (6.6 rating, 10 share).

Univision had 4.3 million (2.2 rating, 3 share), the WB had 3.4 million (2.3 rating, 4 share), UPN had 3.0 million (1.9 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.1 million (.7 rating, 1 share), and Pax TV had 420,000 (0.3 rating, 0 share).

NBC’s “Nightly News” led the evening-news pack, averaging 9.8 million viewers (6.9 rating, 13 share), while ABC’s “World News Tonight” had 9.2 million (6.4 rating, 12 share), and the “CBS Evening News” 8.0 million (5.6 rating, 11 share).

A ratings point represents 1,102,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 110.2 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Feb. 6-12, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “American Idol” (Tuesday), Fox, 31.15 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 28.74 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 27.42 million; “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, 25.42 million; “Desperate Housewives,” ABC, 23.47 million; Winter Olympics (Sunday), NBC, 23.244 million; Winter Olympics (Saturday), NBC, 23.239 million; “House,” Fox, 22.24 million; Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, NBC, 22.17 million; “Without a Trace,” CBS, 20.34 million.

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On the Net:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com

AP-ES-02-14-06 1525EST