Helio Castroneves Wins Dancing With the Stars
November 28, 2007

In something of a shocker, race car driver Helio Castroneves, helped out by the hottest partner on the show, Julianne Hough, walked off with the fifth title of best couple on this season's Dancing With the Stars, one of the biggest hits on TV. Helio Castroneves beat the favorite, Melanie Brown of The Spice Girls, and the dark horse, Marie Osmond.

Marie Osmond was sent packing at the halfway point of Tuesday night's episode, which did top the finale from last spring where Apolo Anton Ohno took the prize from Joey Fatone, which only 23 million people watched last spring. Mel B couldn't quite beat Helio Castroneves, as the athlete beat the former entertainer yet again. Is there a trend here? Other stars showed up in the finale to cheer on the final three, including Celine Dion, who performed "My Heart Will Go On." Other famous faces in the crowd, according to USA Today, were Jennie Garth, Bob Guiney, Donny Osmond, Apolo Ohno, Lisa Rinna, Harry Hamlin, Master P, Christina Milian, Drew Lachey, and Alfonso Ribiero.

The finale was the most watched show of the night, and probably the week, with almost 25 million viewers tuning in, but it was only the third most-watched finale of the five aired so far. It's hard to compare though as every show this year is down with more viewers watching TV online and through DVRs. The ratings were still huge. For perspective, the highest watched Dancing With the Stars finale was in the fall of 2006 when 27.5 million people tuned in to see Emmitt Smith named the winner, that was only 300,000 people more than the next winner, the 2006 winter winner, Drew Lachey.

In other ratings news from last night, House may have been beaten in total viewers but actually scored more 18 to 49-year-olds than Dancing With the Stars. House is still one of the biggest shows on TV, especially in the coveted younger demos. Proving that there are still viewers out there, CBS scored a victory last night too with NCIS landing over 17 million viewers. November Sweeps ended last night and CBS was declared the winner, but ABC is likely to have more total viewers in the coveted demos. NBC, Fox, and The CW had a rough sweeps and every network is about to have a rough time as the writer's strike continues into another month. Luckily, Dancing With the Stars doesn't need writers.