Submitted by: kirkland on Tuesday November 02nd, 2004 at 12:52 PM EST

ABC had all the tricks and the treats as a Halloween night airing of "Desperate Housewives" racked up its largest audience to date.

The suburban black comedy delivered 22.3 million viewers and 9.8 rating/23 share in the adults 18-49 demographic at 9 p.m., according to preliminary estimates for Sunday from Nielsen Media Research.

ABC's mega-hit beat the combined numbers of its broadcast network competition in the hour, and it did so even without the benefit of airing in the nation's third-largest TV market, Chicago, where the ABC-owned station opted to carry ESPN's coverage of a football game between the San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears instead of "Housewives."

The WB Network didn't do itself any favors in scheduling its struggling newcomer "The Mountain" in the 9 p.m. slot previously held by another fledgling freshman drama "Jack & Bobby," which has relocated to "Mountain's" old Wednesday 9 p.m. time slot. "Mountain" drew fewer than 2 million viewers, coming out of a healthy 8 p.m. lead-in from "Charmed" (3.8 million, 1.8/5).

» Read full story @ Reuters