weekly broadcast ratings

Sunday’s thrilling comeback win by the New York Jets over the Dallas Cowboys was seen by 25.8 million people, the Nielsen ratings company said. It was the most-watched Sunday night game since NBC began that franchise in 2006 and was the most-watched Sunday or Monday night game in 14 years.

The network game that puts strangers in close quarters and films them is up 4% in viewers from last season. Three of the 12 most-watched programs on broadcast TV last week were Big Brother editions.

MTV’s annual Video Music Awards on Sunday were seen by 12.44 million people, the Nielsen Co. said. Meanwhile, broadcast’s most-watched show last week, NBC’s America’s Got Talent, logged just under 12 million viewers on Tuesday. The feat shows how the distinction between broadcast and cable has grown meaningless for many viewers, particularly younger ones.

NBC scored with its preseason NFL faceoff between San Diego and Dallas. But CBS was on top overall in primetime for the week. Among CBS’ high performers, three editions of Big Brother landed in the Top 10.

Community and 30 Rock were each seen by 1.7 million people last week, the Nielsen Co. said. Parks and Recreation had 1.5 million viewers and The Office had 2.1 million. It follows a trend hurting reruns on broadcast networks, particularly with fresh material plentiful elsewhere.

The latest installment of the dating series The Bachelorette, with Ashley Hebert picking J.P. Rosenbaum over Ben Flajnik and getting a marriage proposal from Rosenbaum in return, landed near the top of last week’s most-watched programs. So did the reunion special that followed.

Only three scripted series ranked among the Nielsen Co. top 10 last week: reruns of NCIS and The Big Bang Theory on CBS, and the summer cop show from Canada, Flashpoint. The paucity is even more pronounced among those ages 18 to 49, where the only scripted show in the top 10 was a cartoon, Family Guy.

Sixteen of last week’s top 20 TV shows were televised by CBS last week. They included three primetime visits to the Big Brother household, version 13, and several reruns of crime dramas.

CBS was powered by its strong slate of dramas, which do well even in reruns, along with 60 Minutes and three editions of Big Brother.

Scott Pelley’s third-place newscast reached an average of 5.55 million viewers during his first five weeks in the anchor chair, an increase of 7% over the same five weeks in 2010 when Katie Couric was the anchor. But the other two broadcast network comptitors also post year-to-year gains in the July 4-10 week.

Twelve of the 25 most popular primetime programs last week were reruns of scripted dramas or comedies on CBS. CBS’s one other entry in Nielsen’s top 25 was the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which usually airs recycled material in the summer.

Nielsen said the Mavericks’ series victory over the Miami Heat was seen by an average of 17.3 million people over the six games. The fourth, fifth and sixth games of the Heat-Mavericks series eclipsed those corresponding games last year despite the presence of the NBA’s most storied franchises. Many tuned in this year to see if LeBron James would win his first championship after his much-maligned decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The first three games of the NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks were more popular with viewers than any of pro basketball’s ultimate series since 2004. Those games led ABC to a victory in Nielsen’s weekly primetime ratings competition.

CBS finished the 2010-11 season last week as the nation’s most-watched television network for the eighth time in nine years. Fox won its seventh season in a row among the 18-to-49-year-old demographic closely watched by advertisers. The country’s favorite TV show was Fox’s American Idol for the eighth straight season.

The seventh installment of Tom Selleck’s Jesse Stone series of TV movies was a strong performer for CBS on Sunday. The movie, starring Selleck as police chief of the fictional town of Paradise, was seen by nearly 14 million people, among the 10 most popular shows measured by the Nielsen Co. last week. The audience was 21% bigger than the last Stone movie last year.

The two airings of Fox’s contest were the most-watched programs in primetime television last week. It’s a familiar role for the show, which has held up well in the ratings despite losing Simon Cowell and adding Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler as judges.

Competition dominated primetime network TV, with the top shows being American Idol, Dancing With the Stars and CBS’s airing of Connecticut’s victory over Butler in the NCAA men’s basketball championship.

The Nielsen Co. said that the show is averaging 25.1 million viewers this season, down by just under 2% from last year’s 25.5 million, despite losing its dominant personality. Simon Cowell and fellow judge Kara DioGuardi were replaced by professional musicians Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler.

In order to stretch a limited number of original episodes across a September-to-May season, networks need to find a few pockets to stick in reruns.The holiday season is one. Last week was another, as reruns dominated the schedule.

The two versions of Fox’s American Idol last week were the most popular programs on TV, the only shows with more than 20 million viewers, Nielsen said. But the next 16 shows on Nielsen’s list were all on CBS.

ABC’s The Middle, BET’s revived The Game and Comedy Central’s Tosh.0 each had their largest audiences ever for episodes that aired last week. It was also a big week for pro football. The post-game show for the New York Jets-New England Patriots game was the most-watched primetime show last week. The game itself, most of which was not in primetime, averaged 43.5 million viewers.

Notching its 14th week as the most-watched network so far in the 16-week-old season, CBS could claim half the Top 20 shows. But top show honors went to another network: Attracting 33.4 million viewers, NBC’s airing of the NFL playoff matchup between the New York Jets and Indianapolis Colts treated the network to its biggest Saturday audience on record.

Last Tuesday’s special edition of NBC Sunday Night Football, featuring the Minnesota Vikings’ upset of the Philadelphia Eagles, had been postponed by a blizzard. It was the week’s most-watched broadcast, drawing 23.7 million viewers. Then NBC scored again five days later with another, regularly scheduled Sunday Night Football with the Seattle Seahawks beating the St. Louis Rams.

The massive Northeastern snowstorm denied NBC its usual Sunday prime-time powerhouse with the cancellation of the Philadelphia Eagles-Minnesota Vikings game. It was rescheduled for Tuesday, airing too late to help NBC in last week’s Nielsen ratings report. CBS came out on top, averaging 7.1 million viewers (4.5 rating/8 share).

Those two networks turned in a depressing performance last week. Combined, their average viewership in primetime didn’t match what top-rated CBS had. CBS has won every week but one in the current TV season, Nielsen said.

AMC’s season finale of The Walking Dead, the TV version of a comic book zombie series, scored the biggest audience ever for a basic cable drama series in the key young demographic of viewers aged 18-to-49-years-old. And CBS’s traditional airing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer scored 12.2 million viewers last week, beating out all other holiday fare.

Just a few days after the last two episodes of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars became the most-watched entertainment shows of the TV season with Bristol’s unexpected placement in the finals, mom Sarah Palin’s reality series on TLC got a boost.

Nightly News averaged 8.7 million viewers last week. It opened up the largest weekly gap between NBC and the second-place ABC’s World News since last winter’s Olympics, which NBC aired with Brian Williams on the scene.