NFC championship, ‘American Idol’ help Fox crush competition for week of Jan. 18-24

Football, ‘American Idol’ lead to big week for Fox

NEW YORK — NFL conference championships were huge television draws for Fox and CBS.

The overtime thriller between New Orleans and Minnesota, sending the Saints to their first Super Bowl, was seen by 57.9 million people Sunday, the Nielsen Co. said. It was the most-watched NFL conference championship since the 1982 contest between Dallas and San Francisco.

Although it wasn’t in prime-time, CBS similarly had big numbers for the AFC championship game between the New York Jets and the Indianapolis Colts. Nielsen said that game was seen by 46.9 million, the most popular AFC title tilt since the 1986 game between New England and Miami.

Unlike the playoff games a week earlier, both of Sunday’s games were competitive. The NFC contest had the added elements of a popular quarterback, Brett Favre, trying to get back to the Super Bowl and a city on its best football run ever.

In general, sports events on TV have been doing very well in the ratings the past year or so. Experts suggest one element may be the growth of high-definition television — now in about one-third of American homes — which are big favorites among sports fans.

The NFC game, along with two episodes of “American Idol,” helped Fox crush its competition last week.

Fox averaged 24.4 million viewers in prime-time (13.3 rating, 21 share). CBS was a distant second with 9.6 million viewers (6.1, 10), ABC had 6.3 million (4.1, 7), NBC had 5.3 million (3.3, 5), the CW had 1.9 million (1.2, 2) and ION Television had 1.2 million (0.8, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.6 million viewers (1.8 rating, 3 share), TeleFutura had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 960,000 (both 0.5, 1) and Azteca had 240,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 10.3 million viewers (6.6, 12). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8.5 million (5.6, 10) and “CBS Evening News” had 6.5 million viewers (4.4, 8).

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 Jan. 18-24, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFC Championship: Minnesota vs. New Orleans, Fox, 57.93 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 26.85 million; “American Idol,” (Tuesday), Fox, 26.38 million; “NFC Championship Post-Game Show,” Fox, 23.83 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 16.31 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 15.05 million; “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 14.91 million; “The Mentalist,” CBS, 14.56 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 14.29 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 14.19 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.

On the Net:

www.nielsenmedia.com