'Brother,' golf lift CBS on Sunday

CBS cruised to a primetime ratings victory Sunday, as a golf overrun led to higher-than-usual ratings. Its ''Big Brother'' was the No. 1 show in demos, while ABC scored with a country music special but Fox struggled with its new sketch comedy series. Preliminary Nielsen national estimates for CBS are murky due to a roughly 64-minute overrun from golf's PGA Championship, which resulted in the sliding of the net's lineup in most of the country. In the evening's opening hour, golf did a 1.7/6 in 18-49 and 9.3 million viewers overall, significantly outperforming the summer demo average of ''60 Minutes.'' The newsmag then followed at 8 o'clock in most of the country (2.0/6 in 18-49, 7.9 million viewers overall), followed by ''Big Brother'' at 9 (2.5/6 in 18-49, 7.2 million viewers overall) and ''Same Name'' at 10 (1.5/4 in 18-49, 4.8 million viewers overall). The Eye won the night in demos as well as total viewers, logging its best Sunday averages of summer. ABC drew tiny numbers kicking off the night with the special ''I Am First: Science is Rock and Roll'' (0.5/2 in 18-49, 2.2 million viewers overall) before picking up nicely with the three-hour concert special ''CMA Music Festival: Country's Night to Rock'' (1.6/5 in 18-49, 7.0 million viewers overall), which was down a tick in 18-49 from last year's airing on a Wednesday while logging its second largest overall audience in six years. At Fox, repeats of comedies ''American Dad'' (1.0/3 in 18-49, 2.1 million viewers overall), ''Bob's Burgers'' (0.9/3 in 18-49, 1.9 million viewers overall), ''The Simpsons'' (1.4/4 in 18-49, 3.0 million viewers overall) and ''Family Guy'' (1.7/5 in 18-49, 3.5 million viewers overall) were followed by the debut of ''In the Flow with Affion Crockett,'' which settled for a 1.2/3 in 18-49 and 2.5 million viewers overall from 9 to 10. It beat NBC's ''Marriage Ref'' but finished well behind CBS (whose ''Big Brother'' was its surprise competition due to golf) and ABC. NBC ran fourth in demos even though ''Dateline'' was on the high side (1.2/4 in 18-49, 6.5 million viewers overall), taking advantage of its lack of ''60 Minutes'' competition in most of the country to rack up its best demo score for a Sunday edition since May and its largest overall audience for the newsmag on the night since March 2009. The net then dropped off from there, but remained steady with a repeat ''Minute to Win It'' (0.9/3 in 18-49, 3.5 million viewers overall) and original episodes of ''Marriage Ref'' at both 9 (0.9/2 in 18-49, 2.7 million viewers overall) and 10 (0.9/2 in 18-49, 2.7 million viewers overall). Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: CBS, 1.9/5; ABC, 1.4/4; Fox, 1.2/4; Univision, 1.1/3; NBC, 1.0/3. In total viewers: CBS, 7.3 million; ABC, 5.8 million; NBC, 3.8 million; Univision, 3.1 million; Fox, 2.6 million. Contact Rick Kissell at rick.kissell@variety.com