Winners, losers as new television season is launched

NEW YORK - After a long, slow summer, viewers are sampling new programs and old favorites as fall's TV season begins. A look at how it's going:

WINNER: "Desperate Housewives." Who else? The season debut of ABC's phenomenon was seen by 28.2 million people, second only to last May's season ender for its most popular episode. The changing-the-corpse's-tie scene was undoubtedly water cooler talk across the country on Monday. ABC tried relentlessly to keep viewers for "Grey's Anatomy," and the strategy worked for 19.5 million people.

LOSER: "The West Wing." NBC took a chance by moving this series to Sunday. It could be a savvy counterprogramming strategy if viewers find it; fewer than 9 million did for its season premiere. The series averaged more than 11 million viewers last season, and last season's premiere had 12.3 million.

EXTRAS: CBS's "Ghost Whisperer" with Jennifer Love Hewitt had 11.4 million people sampling its premiere, doing better at first than the series it replaced, "Joan of Arcadia."... In more bad news for NBC, its Friday night series about a fertility clinic, "Inconceivable," had only 6.4 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen Media Research estimates.