CBS wins Nielsen prime-time viewership with trusty dramas, comedies, ‘60 Minutes’

CBS wins viewership with trusty dramas, comedies

NEW YORK — NBC’s football and CBS’ dramas and comedies were favorites among TV viewers last week, according to the Nielsen Co.

The top show was NBC’s Sunday night faceoff between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. But other than the pre-game show and NBC’s “Biggest Loser,” the week’s top 10 was dominated by reliable CBS hits like “CSI” and “Two and a Half Men.” CBS’ newsmagazine, “60 Minutes,” came in fourth.

Another magazine, “Dateline NBC,” proved popular with a special edition titled “The Secret Life of Tiger Woods.” It included an interview with one of Woods’ alleged girlfriends describing what she said was their two-year affair. Drawing 9.3 million viewers to claim a 24th-place ranking, the program seemed to set the stage for additional magazine shows with more of Woods’ alleged paramours.

In the world of premium cable, Sunday’s fourth-season finale of “Dexter” delivered 2.5 million viewers, making the vigilante-cop drama Showtime’s most-watched telecast since a Mike Tyson fight a decade ago.

Overall for the week among broadcast networks, CBS was the ratings winner, averaging 10.6 million viewers in prime time (6.6 rating, 11 share). NBC had 8.76 million (5.5 rating, 9 share), while ABC had 6.83 million (4.2 rating, 7 share) and Fox had 6.22 million (3.8 rating, 6 share). The CW had 1.63 million (1.1 rating, 2 share) and ION Television had 1.05 million (0.7 rating, 1 share).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision had 3.51 million viewers (1.8 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.11 million (0.6 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 1.04 million (0.5 rating, 1 share), and Azteca had 340,000 viewers (0.2 rating, 0 share).

NBC’s “Nightly News” led the evening newscasts with an average of 9.9 million viewers (6.5 rating, 12 share). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8.8 million (5.9 rating, 11 share), and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.8 million (4.6 rating, 8 share).

A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Dec. 7-13, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: Sunday Night Football: Philadelphia at NY Giants, NBC, 20.88 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 16.43 million; “The Mentalist,” CBS, 16.37 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 16.24 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 15.087 million; “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 15.085 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 14.84 million; “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 14.43 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 14.38 million; “Biggest Loser 8,” NBC, 13.45 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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