CBS The Big Winner In Ratings Last Week

NEW YORK (AP) – CBS buried its rivals in the ratings last week, logging 17 of the 25 most-watched shows.

Runner-up NBC, as usual, could claim the week’s top-rated show: Sunday night football. Its broadcast of the NFL playoff game between Detroit and New Orleans drew nearly 32 million viewers, according to Nielsen Co. figures released Tuesday. NBC’s pre-game show ranked second for the week, with more than 25 million viewers.

But CBS dominated in the rankings after that, scoring big with such hits as “NCIS,””60 Minutes” and “Two and a Half Men.” Overall for the week, CBS averaged 12.67 million viewers (7.7 rating, 12 share), far ahead of NBC, with 8.26 million viewers (5.0 rating, 8 share), Nielsen said.

In third place, ABC had 7.27 million viewers (4.6 rating, 7 share), while Fox had 4.23 million (2.6 rating, 4 share), Ion Television had 1.01 million (0.7 rating, 1 share), and the CW had 1.38 million (0.9 rating, 1 share).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.60 million viewers (1.7 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.31 million (0.7 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 550,000 (0.3 rating, 0 share), Estrella had 220,000 viewers (0.1 rating, 0 share) and Azteca had 200,000 (also 0.1 rating, 0 share).

NBC’s “Nightly News” was on top among the evening newscasts with an average of 8.9 million viewers (5.9 rating, 11 share). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8.0 million viewers (5.2 rating, 9 share), and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.7 million viewers (4.5 rating, 8 share).

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.