• by Wayne Friedman , August 31, 2009

Two modest TV franchises went in different directions on Sunday night: NFL pre-season games are on the rise; Daytime Emmy Awards are headed south.

NBC recorded its best results in five years with an NFL pre-season game featuring the Chicago Bears and Denver Broncos, earning a 3.4 rating/9 share among 18-49 viewers -- a strong result for the somewhat slower-moving summertime TV period. Helping pull in viewers, former Denver quarterback Jay Cutler, now the Bears quarterback, returned to Denver for the first time.

On the other end of the spectrum, the CW's airing of "The 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards" recorded a slim 0.6 rating/2 share among 18-49ers -- exactly half its results of year ago when it pulled in a 1.2 rating/4 share.

The only competition to the NFL game for the night came from CBS' "Big Brother," which posted a 2.5/7.

In terms of strength of the networks overall, Fox had the best results after NBC, thanks to reruns of its Sunday animated comedies. Its best results came from a 8:30 p.m. rerun of "The Simpsons," which took in a 2.5/7.

Virtually every other show of the night limped to the finish line under the 2 rating point mark. Among the newer stuff, ABC's "Shark Tank" got to a 1.7/5 -- about where it has been recently. CBS' "There Goes The Neighborhood" earned a 1.2/3, while ABC's "Defying Gravity" breezed in with a light 0.9/2.

NBC was at a 2.8/8 average for the night among 18-49 viewers, followed by Fox at 1.8/5. CBS was next at a 1.6/5; ABC at 1.5/4; Univision at 0.7/2; and CW with a 0.5/2.