Football Leads NBC To Ratings Win

NEW YORK (AP) — Two football games that showed the widely divergent paths of New York’s pro football teams boosted NBC to its first ratings win of the new season.

NBC aired the Jets’ embarrassing loss to the New England Patriots on Thanksgiving night, and followed it on Sunday with the Giants’ easy victory over the Green Bay Packers.

Those two big primetime audiences on a holiday week enabled NBC to win its first week in the Nielsen company’s ratings since it televised the Super Bowl last winter.

Lifetime’s debut of the movie “Liz & Dick” starring Lindsay Lohan reached 3.5 million viewers on Sunday, Nielsen said.

NBC averaged 9.5 million viewers in prime-time for the win (5.6 rating, 9 share). CBS was second with an 8.3 million average (5.2, 9), ABC had 8.2 million (5.0, 8), Fox had 6.2 million (3.6, 6) and the CW and Ion Television both had 1.2 million (both 0.8, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.4 million viewer average (1.7, 3). Telemundo had 1.2 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 800,000 (0.4, 1), Estrella had 240,000 and Azteca 110,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 10.2 million viewers (6.8, 12). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8.3 million (5.5, 11), and the “CBS Evening News” had 7.1 million viewers (4.8, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1% 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 Nov. 19-25. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.

1. NFL Football: Green Bay at N.Y. Giants, NBC, 20.85 million.

2. NFL Football: New England at N.Y. Jets, NBC, 19.21 million.

3. “NCIS,” CBS, 16.48 million.

4. College Football: Notre Dame at USC, ABC, 16.06 million.

5. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 15.13 million.

6. “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 14.28 million.

7. “The OT,” Fox, 13.5 million.

8. “Dancing With the Stars Results,” ABC, 13.01 million.

9. “Football Night in America,” NBC, 12.8 million.

10. “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 11.53 million.

11. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 11.09 million.

12. “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 10.77 million.

13. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 10.6 million.

14. “Castle,” ABC, 10.36 million.

15. “The Mentalist,” CBS, 10.15 million.

16. “Vegas,” CBS, 10.12 million.

17. “2 Broke Girls,” CBS, 9.74 million.

18. “The Amazing Race,” CBS, 9.58 million.

19. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 9.47 million.

20. “The Good Wife,” CBS, 9.45 million.