Nielsen: Football helps NBC rush to a ratings win last week

NEW YORK (AP) - Football helped loft NBC to a ratings win last week, according to the Nielsen company.

Its Thursday night clash between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Indianapolis Colts was the week's most-watched show, scoring nearly 21 million viewers. The runner-up was NBC's Sunday sportscast of the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Denver Broncos, seen by 18.44 million viewers.

But CBS was close behind with "60 Minutes," ranked third with more than 17 million viewers, and, in fourth place, the seemingly indomitable "NCIS," logging nearly 15 million viewers.

Overall for the week in prime time among broadcast networks, NBC averaged 9.25 million viewers. CBS averaged 7.93 million viewers. ABC averaged 5.84 million viewers, Fox had 2.90 million, Univision had 1.73 million, Telemundo had 1.50 million, ION Television had 1.38 million and the CW had 1.33 million.

Among cable networks, the Hallmark Channel led with 3.00 million, while ESPN had 2.89 million and Fox News Channel had 1.94 million. Cable news rival CNN averaged 698,000 viewers, while MSNBC averaged 648,000.

"NBC Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average 9.61 million viewers while ABC's "World News Tonight" had an average of 9.22 million viewers. The "CBS Evening News" had 8.01 million.

For the week of Nov. 21-27, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: Pittsburgh at Indianapolis, NBC, 20.88 million; NFL Football: Kansas City at Denver, NBC, 18.44 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 17.27 million; "NCIS," CBS, 14.86 million; "Thursday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 14.69 million; "Sunday Night NFL Pre-kick," NBC, 13.14 million; "Dancing With the Stars" (Monday), ABC, 12.08 million; NFL Football: Houston vs. Oakland, ESPN, 11.79 million; NFL Thursday Pre-game, NBC, 11.73 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 11.39 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. ESPN is owned by ESPN Inc.

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Online:

http://www.nielsen.com

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This story has been corrected to show "NBC Nightly News" with the week's winning viewership, not ABC's "World News Tonight."