Some 14.5 million people were singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" last week, making Fox's coverage of Major League Baseball's All-Star Game the most-watched telecast of the week. (The figure represented only the primetime segment of the telecast, which stretched past 1:00 a.m. as the game went into extra innings. From 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., it averaged 11 million viewers, more than the number that watched any other show in primetime during the week.) The game also helped Fox win the week, making it a rare win for the network during the summer months. Its Wednesday edition of So You Think You Can Dance also made it into Nielsen's top ten. Fox averaged a 4.5 rating and an 8 share for the week. CBS placed second with a 4.3/8. NBC took third place with a 3.6/7, while ABC trailed with a 2.9/5.

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. Major League Baseball All-Star Game, Fox, 9.3/16; 2. America's Got Talent, NBC, 7.9/13; 3. MLB All-Star Game Pregame Show, Fox, 6.8/13; 4. Criminal Minds, CBS, 6.2/11; 5. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 6/10; 6. CSI: NY, CBS, 5.7/10; 7. 60 Minutes, CBS, 5.6/11; 7. So You Think You Can Dance (Wednesday), Fox, 5.6/10; 9. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 5.5/9; 10. Dateline (Sunday), NBC, 5.3/9; 10. (tie) NCIS, CBS, 5.3/10.

ABC and NBC wound up in a virtual tie for first place among the three nightly newscasts. Nielsen gave them an identical 5 rating and 11 share and noted that NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams averaged 7.23 million viewers, while ABC's World News With Charles Gibson drew 7.22 million. The difference was statistically insignificant. CBS Evening News with Katie Couric remained substantially behind with 5.5 million viewers.

Raising new questions about the viability of online video as a revenue source, the sales manager of Google's YouTube has told the ClickZ conference on online video in New York that his sales team has been able to sell ads against less than 3 percent of the videos posted on the site. Brian Cusack also disclosed that the biggest advertisers are television networks, who presumably are buying spots to hype their television shows, and movie studios. Cusack also said that the YouTube sales staff has also begun "making progress" with other advertisers, including home improvement retailers, who buy ads against "how to" videos. The Silicon Valley Insider observed today that many of the biggest viral hits on the site, like last week's "Homemade Porn" video, run without advertising.

The Walt Disney Co. has wasted no time in finding replacements for Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper as hosts of the syndicated Ebert & Roeper and the Movies. Two days after Roeper quit the show and one day after Ebert did -- he has actually not appeared on it since a 2006 operation left him unable to speak -- Disney said that they will be succeeded by Ben Lyons, currently a film critic for E! Entertainment channel and Ben Mankiewicz, who hosts a movie discussion show on the cable network TCM (Turner Classic Movies). Disney also said that the show will be revamped, with a new set, graphics and theme and that a new segment will be added in which the two hosts will discuss new movies by satellite with other film critics. A spokeswoman for Disney-ABC Domestic Television, which syndicates the show, denied earlier reports that Ebert & Roeper and the Movies will be converted into an entertainment magazine show along the lines of Entertainment Tonight.

Estelle Getty, best known for her role as Bea Arthur's mother Sophia on The Golden Girls, died Tuesday in Hollywood at age 84. She was only 60 when she auditioned for the role, and an Associated Press obituary noted that she had originally been turned down by the producers because she didn't look old enough to play a woman in her 80s. She returned for another audition, telling a makeup artist, "To you this is just a job. To me it's my entire career down the toilet unless you make me look 80." Real life was not as kind to Getty in her 80s as it was to her character. Her son, Carl Gettleman, told the AP that she had been suffering from advanced dementia.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said today (Wednesday) that it had reached a turning point in the digital age with the launch of an online streaming platform that will enable viewers to watch a variety of its programs on demand. The iView platform offers channels for children's shows, documentaries, shopping, news, arts and "Catch-up" (where viewers can see ABC programs they may have missed in recent weeks). Kim Dalton, director of television for ABC, said in a statement that the iView platform is "about reaching our audience with unique quality content, where they want it, when they want it, and how they want it."