Fox leads ABC in sweeps as Big Five networks slip “American Idol” slipped to its lowest Wednesday rating in five years earlier this week, but Fox still remains far out ahead for this May sweeps. At the end of the first full week of sweeps, Fox leads with a 3.6 adults 18-49 rating and 10 share, off 16 percent from last year, according to Nielsen numbers supplied by the network. ABC is second at 2.9/8, down 19 percent from last year. CBS is in third at 2.6/7, a 21 percent decline compared to last year and the biggest dip for any of the Big Four. NBC, which has the smallest percentage of original programming of any of the Big Four this sweeps, sits in fourth place with a 2.0/6, slipping 20 percent from last year. The CW was a distant fifth at 1.1/3, though it targets a younger audience, 18-34s. It’s also down 21 percent from last year. The only English-language broadcast network to see improvement over last year is MyNetworkTV, up 67 percent from a 0.3 last year to a 0.5 this year.   ABC Family upfront: Meet Nikki, an advertiser's dream ABC Family isn’t just pitching its shows to advertisers for next season, it’s also introducing them to an engaging girl named Nikki. At its upfront presentation yesterday the network said it will roll out “Nikki in the City,” a series of 30-second shorts that will air at the beginning of commercial breaks, aiming to engage audiences during the ad breaks. Actress Jaime Coates plays Nikki, a young and influential millennial, and ABC Family hopes to work advertisers seamlessly into the content of the shorts, saying it will produce as many as necessary. It comes at a time when networks are increasingly looking to guarantee viewer engagement with commercials, whose ratings are now the basis of most upfront deals. In terms of traditional programming, the network plans to bring back “Greek,” “Kyle XY” and “Lincoln Heights” for new seasons, while adding four new shows: “The Middleman,” an hour-long series based on the graphic novels by Javier Grillo-Marxauch; “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” about how family and friends deal with an unexpected pregnancy; “Roommates,” the network’s first original 30-minute sitcom; and “Sophie,” another half-hour comedy about a woman in the midst of the worst year of her life. ABC Family also has two movies lined up in “The Circuit,” a racing story starring Michelle Trachtenberg, and “Picture This,” a coming-of-age story featuring Ashley Tisdale, as well as the six-hour miniseries “Samurai Girl,” based on the series of novels. The network is coming off its best first quarter ever in both prime and total day among total viewers and all its target demos.   Ion upfront: We're targeting 25-54s with newer reruns For several years, Ion has been second only to Nick at Nite and TV Land in peddling primetime nostalgia, with shows like “Who’s the Boss” and “Wonder Years” peppering its schedule. Next year, however, Ion is getting a bit more contemporary. The network that’s gone through several rebrands over the past five years has finally decided on a target demo, adults 25-54, and it will woo them with reruns of current shows that have performed well among older adults on the Big Three broadcast networks, including rebroadcasts of ABC’s “Boston Legal” and NBC’s “ER” this fall and CBS’s “Ghost Whisperer” and “Criminal Minds” in 2009. That was the thrust of yesterday’s upfront presentation, where Ion also announced 12 original movies for the 2008-’09 season and the addition of USA Network’s “Dead Zone.” Ion had previously said that “M*A*S*H” reruns will join the schedule this year. Season to date, Ion has averaged 210,000 25-54 viewers in primetime, even to last year. The network has slipped 13 percent in total viewers, from 480,000 to 420,000.   Babs to Oprah: I had an affair with a married senator Another celebrity autobiography, another affair revealed. But this time it’s venerable ABC newswoman Barbara Walters revealing the dirt rather than digging it. Walters, now a host on ABC’s “The View,” spills the beans about an affair she had some 30 years ago with Edward Brooke, who was then a married U.S. senator, while publicizing her new book “Audition” on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” That’s according to an advance transcript of the Tuesday show obtained by the Associated Press. Brooke, who Walters describes as “brilliant,” served as a Massachusetts senator for two terms, from 1967 to 1979, becoming the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the senate. Walters, who says the affair lasted over a couple of years, told Oprah that she was “certainly infatuated” with Brooke but that friends warned her that the affair could ruin both their careers.   TiVo survey: Clair Huxtable is TV's favorite mother Fair but firm – those apparently are the qualities viewers value in their ideal TV moms. In a new pre-Mother’s Day survey by digital video recorder service provider TiVo, respondents ranked “The Cosby Show’s” sensible lawyer Clair Huxtable their favorite TV mom from the past or present. She won by a large margin, getting 58 percent of the vote, compared with 37 percent for “Happy Days’” Marion Cunningham and “The Brady Bunch’s” Carol Brady. (Respondents voted for their top five choices from a list of 20 mothers.) “Leave it to Beaver’s” June Cleaver finished fifth, followed by cartoon mamas Marge Simpson (“The Simpsons”) and Wilma Flintstone (“The Flintstones”). Bringing up the rear: Norma Arnold of “The Wonder Years,” Estelle Costanza of “Seinfeld” and Lucille Bluth of “Arrested Development.”