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For years "American Idol" has been known to its competitors by a moniker meant to express its popularity and immense ratings: "The Death Star."

"Dancing With the Stars" and series-high scores for sophomore drama "Castle" carried ABC to a rather easy primetime ratings victory Monday, a night when the top scripted programs on competing networks aired in repeats.

For the second straight week since switching over to two hours of "Dateline" and premiering the genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?," NBC nearly won the night, putting a serious scare into CBS' normally sturdy procedurals.

Early indications are that an Academy Awards telecast where "The Hurt Locker" topped the popular "Avatar" for best picture was popular with viewers.

Although NBC may have lost up to $200 million on the Winter Olympics, the network drew record viewership, helping it get past the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien late-night fiasco.

With skiing and figure skating as its big ticket events, NBC's Friday night coverage of the Winter Olympics had no trouble rolling to ratings wins in all key measures, even if the generally slow night led to low demo ratings.

Shani Davis, Lindsey Vonn and Shaun White are the true American Idols. In a startling turnaround from the night before, the Olympics clobbered Fox's "American Idol" in the ratings Wednesday night. The Nielsen Co. said that during the one hour the two shows competed against one another, the Olympics were seen by 30.1 million people while 18.4 million watched "American Idol."

The Nielsen Co. said an estimated 32.6 million people watched Friday's opening ceremony, approaching the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Games in viewer interest.

The Super Bowl was watched by more than 106 million people, surpassing the 1983 finale of "M-A-S-H" to become the most-watched program in television history....

A popular and eye-popping mix of stars like Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga drew a TV audience of 25.8 million Americans to the Grammy Awards -- the biggest TV audience for the telecast in six years, according to preliminary television ratings on Monday.