Globes Top 24, Housewives in Sunday Ratings Battle

NEW YORK, January 13: While viewership was down for the Golden Globe Awards on NBC this year, the event edged out the return of 24 on FOX and a new episode of Desperate Housewives on ABC in the Sunday night ratings battle.

The three-hour ceremony, back this year after being scaled down in 2008 due to the writers’ strike, brought in 14.6 million viewers. This was down from the 20 million who tuned in two years ago, but a considerable improvement on the 6.2 million viewers for last year’s hour-long news conference to announce the winners.

CBS won the night overall with an average of 30 million viewers, thanks to football coverage, with 15.7 million tuning in to 60 Minutes at 8 p.m. and 12.4 million for Cold Case. ABC attracted 10.3 million viewers in the 8 p.m. slot with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, while Desperate Housewives brought in 13.8 million and Brothers & Sisters 9.1 million. On FOX, meanwhile, 24 returned to the schedule following an absence of some 18 months, after being disrupted last year due to the writers’ strike. The seventh season premiere lured 12.5 million viewers, a small decline on the 2007 edition.

—By Mansha Daswani