NEW YORK (AP) - The CBS remake of "Hawaii Five-0" is getting a bigger benefit from DVRs than any other show on prime-time television.
Through the first three weeks of the TV season, the Monday night drama picked up an average of 3.3 million viewers when the Nielsen Co. added in people who saw the show on their digital video recorders within the next week.
"Hawaii Five-0" wasn't one of the week's top 10 shows through live viewing, but it becomes one when DVR usage is added in. The show is popular with men, and CBS speculated that many of its viewers watch Monday Night Football live and record the drama for later.
"This is becoming the way people are watching television," said Kelly Kahl, CBS' chief scheduling executive. "The overnight rating may be a quick barometer of how shows are doing but not the entire story."
Two Thursday night dramas - CBS' "The Mentalist" and ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" - were the next two biggest gainers from DVR usage. A clogged schedule of popular dramas on that night forces viewers to make their own viewing schedules.
ABC's "Modern Family," which has taken advantage of its Emmy Award for best comedy to start off its sophomore season strongly, is the only comedy among the top DVR'd shows.
"By and large, the most popular shows are getting more popular" through DVR usage, Kahl said.
The return of quarterback Brett Favre to Green Bay with the Minnesota Vikings brought more than 25 million viewers to Sunday night football on NBC. It was easily the week's most popular show, the most-watched game since NBC started the Sunday night franchise five years ago and the most-watched NFL game in October in 14 years, Nielsen said.
In prime-time, CBS was the most popular network for the fifth week in a row, Nielsen said. CBS has won among all viewers and in key demographics for every week of the new TV season so far. That's the longest season-opening streak for a broadcast network since 1997.
With Fox airing baseball's World Series starting Wednesday, a sixth week in a row could be difficult for CBS.
CBS averaged 11.6 million viewers (7.1 rating, 12 share). ABC was second with 8.9 million (5.6, 9), NBC had 8 million (5.0, 8), Fox had 7.5 million (4.5, 8), the CW had 2.1 million (1.3, 2) and ION Television had 1.2 million (0.8, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 4.1 million average (2.0 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 770,000 and TeleFutura 700,000 (both 0.4, 1). Estrella had 240,000 viewers and Azteca 220,000 (both 0.1, 0).
NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.9 million viewers (5.2, 11). ABC's "World News" was second with 6.9 million (4.7, 10) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.3 million viewers (3.6, 7).
A ratings point represents 1,159,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 115.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of Oct. 18-24, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: Minnesota at Green Bay, NBC, 25.68 million; "NCIS," CBS, 19.41 million; "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 19.34 million; "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 19.33 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 16 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 15.79 million; "Dancing With the Stars Results," ABC, 15.53 million; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 14.96 million; "Criminal Minds," CBS, 14.46 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 14.42 million.
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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.
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