MUMBAI: If there is one truism about American television it is that a lot of the time, if a show has done well in its debut season, chances are that viewers will flock in droves for more.

Such is the case with ABC's Desperate Housewives. The first episode of the second season aired a few nights ago. The show attracted more than 28 million viewers. In India the show airs on Star World.
 
 

The episode of Lost saw 23.5 million viewers tuning in. This meant that ABC got its best first-week performance of a new TV season in five years. It was the first time since 1995 that ABC won the first week among the 18-to-49-year-old demographic most important to advertisers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The network got five out of the top 10 programmes for the opening week of the new TV season. The hospital soap Grey's Anatomy saw 19 million viewers tuning in. Invasion saw 16.4 million viewers watching and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was able to attract 16.4 million viewers. While Desperate Housewives' performance was excellent it was below the 30.3 million figure that the final episode of the first season got for ABC.
 
 

It is CBS that is still the number one network. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation got 29 million viewers. However the overall first-week ratings were down seven per cent which has been attributed by observers to the absence of the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. For the opening week 19-25 September 2005, CBS averaged 12.9 million viewers, ABC had 12.3 million, NBC 9.9 million, Fox 6.5 million

NBC as the figures show is in third spot and reports indicate that the business based reality show The Apprentice is slipping as is the sitcom Joey. NBC would have been last were it not for the fact that American Idol has not yet started airing on Fox. Martha Stewart's version of The Apprentice managed only a little more than seven million viewers.