NEW YORK (March 31) - TV viewers proved they loved slime and competition last week.

Eight of the 20 most popular prime-time shows involved some sort of competition, with singers on "American Idol," hoofers on "Dancing With the Stars" and hoopsters playing for the men's college basketball championship, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The slime was on cable network Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards, an annual event where celebrities have green goop poured all over them. This year's victims were host Dwayne Johnson, the Jonas Brothers, Jesse McCartney, Hugh Jackman, Will Ferrell and Sandra Bullock.

With 7.7 million viewers, it was the most-seen of the 22 KCAs that Nickelodeon has aired in its history. The premiere of the animated "The Penguins of Madagascar" immediately followed the awards and was the most popular series debut in Nick's history. It had 6.1 million viewers on Saturday.

CBS won the week, averaging 11.4 million prime-time viewers (7.1 rating, 12 share). Fox was second with 10.2 million viewers (6.0, 10), but won among the coveted 18-to-49-year-old audience. ABC had 9.4 million (6.1, 10), NBC 6.4 million (4.1, 7), the CW 2 million (1.3, 2), My Network TV 1.6 million (1.0, 2) and ION Television 600,000 (0.4, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with an average of 4.3 million viewers (2.2 rating, 4 share), Telemundo had 1.4 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura 770,000 (0.4, 1) and Azteca 170,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.2 million viewers (6.1, 12). ABC's "World News" was second with 8.1 million (5.5, 11) and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.1 million viewers (4.1, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,145,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.5 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of March 23-29, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 26.03 million; "American Idol" (Thursday), Fox, 23.1 million; "Dancing With the Stars" (Monday), ABC, 20.34 million; "NCIS," CBS, 17.83 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 17.62 million; "Dancing With the Stars Results" (Tuesday), ABC, 16.12 million; "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 16.1 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 14.44 million; "Criminal Minds," CBS, 14.36 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 13.67 million.