Sunday Night Ratings: GAME OF THRONES Sets Record; DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES Steady, GCB, MAD MEN, THE KILLING, ONCE UPON A TIME Down

The Sunday night Nielsen ratings are starting to come in. CBS won the night with the ACM Awards telecast. Below is a roundup of April 1 ratings reports we have so far.

From EW.com:
The second season premiere of HBO’s GAME OF THRONES delivered series-high ratings Sunday night. THRONES returned to 3.9 million viewers. That’s up a massive 74 percent from its series debut last year. It also greatly improves upon the show’s previous all-time high, which was just over 3 million viewers.

From The Wrap:
ABC came in second in the demo and total viewers with an average 2.1/6 and 6.7 million total viewers. ONCE UPON A TIME at 8 was down slightly with a 2.7/8 Adults 18-49 demo and 8.2 million total viewers. DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES the following hour was flat with a 2.6/6 and 8.4 million total viewers. GCB slid 10 percent to a 1.9/5, and 5.8 million total viewers.

From ABC:
"Once Upon a Time" (8:00-9:00 p.m.)
Vaulting over its repeat "AFHV" lead-in at 8:00 p.m. (+125%), ABC's "Once Upon a Time" shot up to No. 1 in its hour in Adults 18-49 (2.7/8), leading the slot for its 6th consecutive telecast. In fact, the Disney-owned drama finished as Sunday's No. 1 TV series for the 2nd week in a row.

"Desperate Housewives" (9:00-10:00 p.m.)
ABC's "Desperate Housewives" beat out its regular competition during the 9 o'clock hour in Adults 18-49 (2.6/6), outdelivering Fox's animated comedies ("Family Guy"/"American Dad") by 13% (2.3/5) and the second hour of NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice" by 44% (1.8/4).

"GCB" (10:00-11:00 p.m.)
During the 10 o'clock hour, ABC's "GCB" topped the final hour of NBC's 3-hour "Celebrity Apprentice" by 9% in Adults 18-34 (1.2/3 vs. 1.1/3). It was the 5th straight week for the new ABC drama to rank as the No. 1 broadcast series in its slot with Adults 18-34 and key Women (W18-34/W18-49).

From Entertainment Weekly:
THE KILLING topped out at 2.5 million viewers, down 47 percent from last year’s trio of premiere-night airings. MAD MEN, which delivered its biggest numbers ever last week, had 2.9 million viewers, down only 17 percent from its two-hour premiere.