Nellie Andreeva

Last week, the penultimate episodes of both ABC’s Brothers and Sisters and CBS’ The Amazing Race were impacted by the news of Osama bin Laden’s death. This week, one of them, Brothers and Sisters, was up in its season finale, while the other was down. But for The Amazing Race, it doesn’t really matter as the reality veteran has already been renewed for next season, while the bump may help Brothers and Sisters clinch the short final-season order that ABC has been mulling. The Brothers and Sisters finale (2.0/5) was up 25% from last week. The two-hour Amazing Race closer (2.5/7) was down 4% to rank as the franchise’s lowest-rated finale. That despite its lead-in, 60 Minutes (2.3/8) getting a 53% boost from the interview with President Obama. At 10 PM, the season finale of CSI: Miami (2.0/5) was up from last week when it too was interrupted by the bin Laden announcement. This appears to be the veteran crime drama’s lowest-rated season ender. CBS won the night in 18-49 (2.3/7) and total viewers (10.3 million). Brothers & Sisters‘ finale was preceded by Desperate Housewives (2.8/7), flat with last week, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (2.1/6, down 9%) and America’s Funniest Home Videos (1.7/6, down 15%).

Celebrity Apprentice, which made headlines for getting its last minutes pre-empted on the East Coast for Obama’s strike on bin Laden, aired a three-hour episode (2.4/7), down 23% from last Sunday but still leading NBC to its best nightly demo result since the night of the Golden Globes. (At 7 PM, the network aired Dateline, 0.8/3, down 33%.) Fox’s The Simpsons (2.5/8), the only animated comedy to air an original last week, was down 7%. Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and American Dad, whose tornado-themed May 1 cross-over episodes were scrapped at the last minute, were up 5% from April 17, down 4% from April 17 and down 6% from April 10, respectively. Family Guy ranked as the highest-rated program of the night in 18-49 by a wide margin. Bob’s Burgers (2.0/6) was up 5% from April 10.

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