Season five of "Desperate Housewives" continued to see its ratings slide on Sunday, but the ABC drama remained the night's top rated program with 15.5 million viewers at 9 p.m., according to Nielsen's estimates.
One week ago, the show's premiere earned a much larger audience of 18.7 million. Although easily the night's most watched show, that tally fell a half million shy of last year's fourth season premiere, making it the series' lowest rated season debut.
ABC still eked out a ratings victory Sunday among adults 18 to 49 although the network trailed CBS in total viewers overall. CBS benefited from an overrun of afternoon football coverage into the 7 p.m. hour, which meant the network had more than 20 million viewers tuned in at the start of prime time. CBS's schedule was pushed back by roughly a half hour to accommodate with "60 Minutes" delivering 16.3 million viewers at 7:30 p.m. followed by "The Amazing Race" at 8:30 p.m. (10.8 million), "Cold Case" at 9:30 p.m. (11 million), and "The Unit" at 10:30 p.m. (9.2 million).