NEW YORK – For three of television’s most popular new serial dramas, absence apparently made viewers’ hearts grow cold.

NBC’s “Heroes,” ABC’s “Lost” and CBS’ “Jericho” all returned from lengthy hiatuses recently to find a significant part of their audiences had abandoned them.

“Heroes” was seen by just under 12 million people in its return, according to Nielsen Media Research. While that clearly established the freshman drama as NBC’s most popular show, it’s down from the season’s 14.7 million viewer average.

“Lost” had 11.9 million viewers last week, a sharp fall from its heyday and off the season average of 15.1 million, Nielsen said. “Jericho” was CBS’ most pleasant surprise this season, but the 7.6 million people who watched last week was down 2 million from the season average.

To be fair, each of the shows now face stiffer competition than earlier this year. “Jericho” is now up against Fox’s “American Idol,” while “Heroes” competes with “Dancing With the Stars” and “24.” “Lost” must co-exist with CBS’ “CSI: NY” in the same time slot.

These viewership numbers also don’t reflect how many people save the shows on their digital video recorders to watch more than a day later. Nielsen said “Lost” gains more viewers when the DVR audience is taken into account than any show other than Fox’s “House.”

But the results are likely to affect how networks schedule these dramas in the future. Since viewers don’t like the narratives broken up by repeats or by extended breaks, more will probably be scheduled like Fox’s “24.” That show doesn’t start its season until January and runs straight through to the end in May.

Last week’s ratings showed a fierce, three-way competition for prime-time’s favorite program not named “American Idol.” “House,” CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” all finished within 800,000 viewers of one another, according to Nielsen’s estimates.

For the week, Fox averaged 11.5 million prime-time viewers (6.9 rating, 12 share), and won handily among viewers aged 18-to-49. CBS averaged 10.8 million viewers (7.0, 12), ABC had 9.6 million (6.3, 11), NBC 6.7 million (4.4, 8), the CW 3.1 million (2.1, 3), My Network TV 880,000 (0.6, 1) and the ION network 540,000 (0.4, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision had 3.6 million viewers (2.0 rating, 3 share), Telemundo 920,000 (0.5, 1), TeleFutura 520,000 (0.3, 0), and Azteca 140,000 (0.1, 0).

ABC’s “World News” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.2 million viewers (5.7, 12). NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7.9 million viewers (5.5, 12) and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.4 million (4.6, 10).

A ratings point represents 1,114,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 111.4 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of April 23-29, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 26.93 million; “American Idol” (Tuesday), Fox, 26.55 million; “House,” Fox, 20.81 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 20.2 million; “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, 20.08 million; “Dancing With the Stars” (Monday), ABC, 18.87 million; “Desperate Housewives,” ABC, 17.17 million; “CSI: Miami,” CBS, 17.03 million; “Dancing With the Stars Results” (Tuesday), ABC, 16.56 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 14.17 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is a division of CBS Corp. Fox is a unit of News Corp. NBC is owned by General Electric Co. Telemundo is owned by General Electric. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.