Football Night Propping Up NBC’s Schedule

NEW YORK (AP) — Take pro football out of the mix, and NBC’s ratings problems are glaring.

The NFL’s Sunday night shootout between the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers was seen by nearly 21.2 million people on NBC, the only primetime program to top 20 million viewers last week, the Nielsen Co. said.

NBC’s fall from there was steep. Rivals CBS, ABC and Fox had a total of 28 scripted shows that were seen by more people than the top scripted entertainment program on NBC — “Law & Order: SVU,” with 7.2 million viewers. No NBC entertainment show had more viewers than what Brian Williams'”Nightly News” averaged each weeknight.

NBC Universal is clearly handing off a fixer-upper to Comcast when the corporate takeover is approved, and NBC entertainment’s chief, Jeff Gaspin, said Monday that he wouldn’t be joining the restructured company. NBC also announced a full-scale revamp to its schedule, including moving the sitcom “30 Rock” to a rare 10 p.m. time slot for a comedy and temporarily benching “The Event.”

ABC had a strong showing from the Country Music Association awards, although still not enough to overcome CBS’ depth and strength to win the week.

CBS averaged 10.7 million viewers (6.6 rating, 11 share), closely trailed by ABC’s 10.1 million (6.3, 11). NBC averaged 7.4 million viewers (4.7, 8). Fox had 7.3 million (4.3, 7), the CW had 2.2 million (1.4, 2) and ION Television had 1.3 million (0.8, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a prime-time average of 4 million viewers (2.0, 3), Telemundo had 970,000 (0.5, 1), TeleFutura had 780,000 (0.4, 1), Estrella had 310,000 (0.2, 1) and Azteca had 220,000 (0.1, 0).

The switch to standard time was a boon to all the network evening newscasts, the early darkness convincing more people to turn on their television sets. NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the newscasts with a 9.5 million viewer average (6.2, 12), ABC’s “World News” had 7.9 million (5.3, 10) and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.4 million (4.2, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,159,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 115.9 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 the Nielsen Co. for Nov. 8 through Sunday. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.

1. NFL Football: New England at Pittsburgh, NBC, 21.18 million.

2. “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 19.95 million

3. “NCIS,” CBS, 19.87 million.

4. “Dancing With the Stars Results,” ABC, 16.96 million.

5. “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 16.58 million.

6. “NFL Post-Game,” Fox, 16.56 million.

7. “CMA Awards,” ABC, 16.49 million.

8. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 15.62 million.

9. “The Mentalist,” CBS, 13.84 million.

10. “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 13.63 million.

11. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 13.11 million.

12. “The OT,” Fox, 13.06 million.

13. “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 12.99 million.

14. “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 12.56 million.

15. “Football Night in America,” NBC, 12.39 million.

16. “The Good Wife,” CBS, 12.33 million.

17. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 12.32 million.

18. “Desperate Housewives,” ABC, 11.92 million.

19. “Survivor: Nicaragua,” CBS, 11.29 million.

20. “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, 11.13 million.