NBC Gets A Ratings Win For Christmas

NBC had a rare win in the primetime rankings, with its Sunday night football programming leading the way.

During Christmas week, NBC averaged 7.2 million viewers in primetime (4.0 rating, 7 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.

CBS was second with 6.9 million viewers (4.4 rating, 8 share). When a network has a higher rating despite having a smaller audience, as CBS did, it indicates that more people were watching the network alone. NBC had more cases of several people gathered around the TV — probably watching its Sunday night football game.

Fox had 5.5 million (3.2, 6), ABC had 4.4 million (2.6, 5), Ion Television had 1.1 million (0.7, 1) and the CW had 960,000 (0.6, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.3 million viewers (1.6, 3), Telemundo had 1.3 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura had 450,000 (0.2, 0), Estrella had 220,000 (0.1, 0) and Azteca had 160,000 (also 0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.6 million viewers (5.6, 11). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8.2 million (5.4, 10), and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.4 million viewers (4.3, 8).

The Top 20

Primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Dec. 19-25. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.

1. NFL Football: Chicago at Green Bay, NBC, 24.02 million.

2. “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 18.67 million.

3. “Football Night in America,” NBC, 14.73 million.

4. “The X-Factor” (Thursday), Fox, 12.59 million.

5. “NCIS,” CBS, 12.37 million.

6. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 11.43 million.

7. “The X-Factor” (Wednesday), Fox, 11.23 million.

8. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 9.28 million.

9. “The Mentalist,” CBS, 8.47 million.

10. “Person of Interest,” CBS, 8.14 million.

11. “Unforgettable,” CBS, 8.09 million.

12. “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 7.95 million.

13. “Mike & Molly,” CBS, 7.77 million.

14. “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 7.35 million.

15. “CSI: NY,” CBS, 7.33 million.

16. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 7.29 million.

17. “Terra Nova,” Fox, 7.24 million.

18. “2 Broke Girls,” CBS, 7.2 million.

19. “Hawaii Five-0,” CBS, 7.03 million.

20. “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 6.78 million.