Nellie Andreeva

Jesse Stone Benefit Of The DoubtThe final Sunday of the broadcast season featured a mix of season finales and specials. The specials won over as ABC’s coverage of the 2012 Billboard Awards (2.7/7 in 18-49, 7.4 million total viewers) led the network to a nightly demo victory and CBS’ latest Jesse Stone movie, Benefit Of The Doubt (1.2/3, 12.8 million), drove CBS to a total viewer win. Both specials were down from last year’s installments — the Billboard Awards were down 10% in the demo, Jesse Stone down 8%.

The biggest year-to-year decline belonged to NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice, whose season finale (2.2/6) was down 27% from the 2011 closer to rank as the celebrity franchise’s lowest-rated finale ever. On the bright side, it was Celebrity Apprentice‘s highest 18-49 rating in five weeks. Fox’s animated series also had their season finales last night: The Cleveland Show (1.3/4) was flat with last week, The Simpsons (2.1/7) was up 11% with a guest turn by Lady Gaga, Bob’s Burgers (1.7/5) was down 6%, while the hourlong finale of Family Guy (2.5/6) was up 4%. All four season enders were down from last May’s finales.

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