How sweet football has been to ABC, in an otherwise not very sweet season in which the network has dipped in every demographic.
  Last week gave the network its best showing of the season, with its wild card NFL games and college football bowls.
  Now the network kisses football goodbye and settles in for what could be a very chilly January.
   ABC last week finished first among households, total viewers and adults 18-49. The 4.9/14 delivery among 18-49s was the network’s best of the season, 30 percent above its season average.
   But even that bright moment highlighted just how dismal a year it has been for the network.  It didn't even lift ABC's season-to-date 18-49 rating.
   After 15 weeks, ABC’s 3.6/10 among 18-49s puts it behind Fox and CBS, each with 3.7/10, and leader NBC with 4.1/11.
   While the football ratings were a welcome change for ABC, they also serve to highlight the struggle the network faces on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
   Thursday’s Orange Bowl matchup between Miami and Florida State occupied the 8 p.m. timeslot of “Threat Matrix” and drew a 5.2 rating versus the terrorist drama’s 1.8 for a December episode.
   Similarly, the Sugar Bowl on Sunday between Oklahoma and LSU slid into the timeslot of “10-8” and more than doubled the drama’s 2.5 rating last month, with a 5.9 among 18-49s.
   The BCS games gave the network its only first-place weekly finish of the season, but it was a week where repeats on the other networks offered little in the way of competition anyway.
   If ABC expects to build off any of the ratings highs from last week, the network will have to make some serious revisions to its lineup to ensure a consistent schedule during competitive weeks and times when it can’t count on sports specials.
   As it is, the network is fraught with holes, from shelved series “Karen Sisco” and “LA Dragnet” and the end of "Monday Night Football."
  Not that it’s not trying to fix them. 
  ABC hoped to find a ratings winner in new drama “Line of Fire” to fill the hole left by “NYPD Blue” at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, but even new episodes of a new series couldn’t match “Blue’s” ratings.
   It also has "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital" bowing sometime in March.
  One obvious move would be for ABC to schedule the promised return of “Karen Sisco” on Sundays at 8 p.m. to lead into the network’s other female-driven action drama, “Alias.” 
  So far, the Jennifer Garner series hasn’t reaped any of the benefits of current lead-in “10-8,” and “Sisco” wasn’t making any headway in its former Wednesday timeslot against NBC’s “Law & Order.”
  In the meantime, ABC has kept many of its series intact and has scrambled to fill vacancies with specials and new reality shows, including this week’s debut of “Celebrity Mole” and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” next month.
  The network is also counting on the return of “The Bachelorette,” featuring Bob the Bachelor reject Meredith, to help revive the network in its Wednesday battle against NBC’s “The West Wing.”