NBC Wrests Weekly Ratings Crown From CBS

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel’s two-part documentary on the former Navy SEAL who claims to have fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden is the network’s most popular documentary ever.

Reporter Peter Doocy’s interview with Robert O’Neill averaged just over three million viewers last Tuesday and Wednesday, the Nielsen company said. The second part had 3.37 million viewers, effectively tying with an edition of “The O’Reilly Factor” to be Fox’s most-watched show of the week.

There’s still some confusion about the 2011 raid; Pentagon officials say that it is not clear who fired the shot that killed the al-Qaida leader.

Meanwhile, CBS’ effort to establish a new Hollywood awards show may have cost the network a ratings victory last week. Most weeks, CBS is the most popular network for its prime time programming, but was second behind NBC last week.

On Friday, CBS gave its entire prime-time lineup to the inaugural broadcast of the Hollywood Film Awards and a post-awards show. For the night, the network averaged 3.6 million viewers, Nielsen said. On a typical Friday this season, CBS’ lineup of “The Amazing Race,” “Blue Bloods” and “Hawaii Five-0” has averaged 10.7 million viewers.

NBC also boosted its lineup with a stunt involving a shared storyline on “Chicago Fire,” Chicago PD” and “Law & Order: SVU. That, coupled with a special Wednesday edition of “The Voice,” helped the network boost its Wednesday night live viewership by three million over its season average.

Two very different original movies scored well on television last week. “North Pole,” part of an avalanche of holiday programming on the Hallmark Channel, reached more than 4 million viewers on Saturday night. The same night, Lifetime’s musical portrait, “Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B,” reached 3.2 million viewers.

For the week, NBC averaged 9.2 million viewers in prime time. CBS had 8.6 million, ABC had 7.6 million, Fox had 4.5 million, Univision had 3 million, the CW had 1.8 million, Telemundo had 1.2 million and Ion Television had 1.1 million.

ESPN was the week’s most popular cable network in primetime, averaging 2.99 million viewers. Fox News Channel had 2.08 million, Hallmark had 1.96 million, the Disney Channel had 1.87 million and TBS had 1.82 million.

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.6 million viewers. ABC’s “World News” was second with 9 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 7.4 million viewers.

The Top 20

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

1. NFL Football: New England at Indianapolis, NBC, 20.82 million.

2. “NCIS,” CBS, 17.49 million.

3. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 16.9 million.

4. “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 16.3 million.

5. “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 14.99 million.

6. “The Walking Dead,” AMC, 14.07 million.

7. “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 13.31 million.

8. “Madam Secretary,” CBS, 12.77 million.

9. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 12.65 million.

10. “Football Night in America,” NBC, 11.96 million.

11. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 11.48 million.

12. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 11.42 million.

13. NFL Football: Carolina at Philadelphia, ESPN, 11.31 million.

14. “Mom,” CBS, 11.07 million.

15. “The Voice” (Wednesday), NBC, 10.64 million.

16. “The OT,” Fox, 10.58 million.

17. “The Good Wife,” CBS, 10.55 million.

18. “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 10.35 million.

19. “Scorpion,” CBS, 10.08 million.

20. “Scandal,” ABC, 10.05 million.