CBS Dominated Last Week’s Ratings

NEW YORK (AP) — CBS had little competition for dominance last week in the television ratings.

The network had 17 of the 25 most-watched programs on the air last week, according to the Nielsen company. It beat second-place NBC by an average of nearly four million viewers a night last week, and also took the 18-to-49-year-old demographic that advertisers seek.

“60 Minutes” and “NCIS” were the most popular shows on CBS last week. As is typical in the fall, NBC’s Sunday night football matchup was the week’s most-watched show.

One end-of-year tradition, Barbara Walters’ survey of the year’s most popular personalities, finished No. 27 in the week’s ratings with 7.6 million viewers.

On cable, Showtime’s “Dexter” and “Homeland” both hit series records for their season finale episodes on Sunday. “Dexter” had 2.8 million viewers and “Homeland” had 2.3 million. Showtime preceded each episode with a disclaimer, warning that audiences might find the shows too intense so soon after the Connecticut school killings.

CBS averaged 11.9 million viewers for the week in prime time (7.3 rating, 12 share). NBC had 7.3 million (4.5, 7), ABC had 5.1 million (3.3, 5), Fox had 4.4 million (2.7, 4), the CW had 1.7 million (1.1, 2) and ION Television had 1.3 million (0.9, 1).

Among the Spanish language networks, Univision led with an average of 3.2 million viewers (1.7, 3). Telemundo had 1.3 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura had 850,000 (0.4, 1), Estrella had 340,000 (0.2, 0) and Azteca had 140,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.4 million viewers (6.3, 12). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8.3 million (5.5, 11) and the “CBS Evening News” had 7.2 million viewers (4.9, 9).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

The Top 20

Primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Dec. 10-16. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.

1. NFL Football: San Francisco at New England, NBC, 23.23 million.

2. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 19.63 million.

3. “NCIS,” CBS, 17.65 million.

4. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 16.74 million.

5. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 15.12 million.

6. “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 14.62 million.

7. “Person of Interest,” CBS, 14.08 million.

8. “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 13.34 million.

9. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 12.33 million.

10. “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 12.01 million.

11. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 11.52 million.

12. “Survivor: Philippines” (Sunday), CBS, 11.46 million.

13. “2 Broke Girls,” CBS, 11.04 million.

14. “Modern Family,” ABC, 10.94 million.

15. “2 Broke Girls” (Monday, 9:30 p.m.), CBS, 10.78 million.

16. “Football Night in America,” NBC, 10.47 million.

17. “Elementary,” CBS, 10.46 million.

18. “Survivor: Philippines,” CBS, 10.37 million.

19. “Vegas,” CBS, 10.33 million.

20. “Hawaii Five-0,” CBS, 9.84 million.