It might take "American Idol" in the new year to knock CBS off its weekly ratings throne.

For the fourth week in a row, CBS was the nation's top network in terms of new non-news, non-event programming, earning a 7.1 rating/12 share average in an average of Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. That was down slightly from the previous week, but has been mostly in line with what the Eye has been doing pretty much all season.

ABC was a somewhat distant second with a 6.2/10, despite once again having half the programs in the top 10 for the week. But just as it's been doing in previous weeks, it's some of ABC's weaker shows in the lineup like "Hank," "Eastwick," "Supernanny" and "Ugly Betty" that's drawing ABC's average rating down, while CBS still has not had a single show lower than a 4.0 household rating.

If those shows were removed from ABC's schedule, the network would actually have a 6.9 household rating, and far closer to what CBS kicked out this week.

Fox is having similar problems with a block of low-rated shows bringing down its overall average. Although it fought its way back into third place last week, the return of its Friday lineup with numbers similar to what's normally found on The CW pulled it back into the fourth spot behind NBC with a 3.9/6 compared to a 4.2/6 from the Peacock.

Without its Friday lineup, which did mercifully end this past week in time for sweeps, Fox would have boasted a 4.9 household rating, and would've solidly been in third place ahead of NBC, which has half of its schedule below the 4.0 household rating mark.

NBC has had its own struggles this year, many of which are being caused by the "Jay Leno Show." That daily 10 p.m. offering reached as high as a 4.1/7 last week, but also accounted for the network's lowest-rated fare on Oct. 19 when it managed just a 3.1/5, the lowest since picking up a 2.9/5 on Oct. 5.

"Jay Leno" has maintained a 3.5/6 weekly all through October, and the third week in a row. It started with a 7.4/13 weekly average, and fell to a 4.0/7 by its second week.

ABC continues to make a killing with "Dancing With the Stars," taking the second, third and sixth place among the top shows, while "Grey's Anatomy" is holding on to fifth place."

Only the two NCIS shows are in the top five for CBS, while an improved performance by "Two and a Half Men" moved that sitcom into the top 10, tied with "Desperate Housewives" on ABC and "Criminal Minds" on CBS.

Neither Fox nor NBC had any shows in the top 10.

The audience for "NCIS" grew more than 2 percent last week for a new season high. It's now nearly 19 percent more than its season premiere, and is averaging a 12.1/19 after five episodes, far better than any other show on network television.

"Desperate Housewives" on ABC was one of the biggest gainers, picking up a 7.5 percent increase over its previous audience, allowing it to move over eight shows into the top 10.

Top 10 Network Shows -- [Audience Loyalty Index rating]
1. (1) NCIS (CBS) -- 12.7/20 -- [95.3]
2. (2) Dancing With the Stars (ABC) -- 11.2/17 -- [94.9]
3. (3) Dancing With the Stars (ABC) -- 10.5/16 -- [97.3]
4. (4) NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS) -- 10.2/16 -- [92.8]
5. (7) Grey's Anatomy (ABC) -- 9.6/15 -- [89.1]
6. (8) Dancing With the Stars (ABC) -- 9.3/14 -- [85.0]
7. (9) The Good Wife (CBS) -- 8.6/15 -- [95.7]
8. (13) Two and a Half Men (CBS) -- 8.6/13 -- [97.7]
8. (16) Desperate Housewives (ABC) -- 8.6/13 -- [94.4]
10. (12) Criminal Minds (CBS) -- 8.6/13 -- [92.6]

Top Networks -- [ALI]
1. (1) CBS -- 7.1/12 -- [55.9]
2. (2) ABC -- 6.2/10 -- [55.4]
3. (4) NBC -- 4.2/6 -- [68.9]
4. (3) Fox -- 3.9/6 -- [51.3]
5. (5) The CW -- 1.6/3 -- [76.2]

Data collected from The Nielsen Co., as distributed by Zap2it. For more information on the Audience Loyalty Index, click here.