Desperate Housewives was the most-watched US TV show on Sunday night for the third week in a row.

The show handily won its 9pm timeslot for ABC, pulling in 25.7m viewers. While down a million from last week, that number was well ahead of its closest competition, Law and Order: Criminal Intent on NBC, which drew 12.5m viewers.

At 8pm, Cold Case (15.8m) on CBS narrowly beat Extreme Makeover: Home Edition by 800,000 viewers. NBC's West Wing trailed the pack with 8.1m viewers.

At 10pm, ABC's Grey's Anatomy flattened the competition with 18.5m viewers. Crossing Jordan on NBC came in second with 12.9m.

Between 9pm and 11pm, CBS averaged just under 9m viewers with a tele-movie about the so-called "BTK" serial killer; preliminary numbers for live sports coverage on Fox between 8pm and 11pm have the network averaging around 12m viewers throughout primetime.