• by Wayne Friedman , December 28, 2009

This Sunday holiday weekend was an easy victory for network prime time: NFL football won the day -- and night.

The early part of prime time was easily taken by CBS' slew of NFL afternoon games that spilled over into the evening. It scored a Nielsen preliminary 6.7 rating/20 share among 18-49 viewers and a massive 23.7 million viewers.

The rest of the night belonged to NBC and its NFL coverage, grabbing a preliminary 5.9/16 among 18-49 viewers -- although down from its regular season average.

There was little opposition most of the night as both ABC and CBS screened movies that have been aired before: "The Sound of Music" and "Jesse Stone: Thin Ice," respectively. "Music" earned a 1.7/4 and "Stone", a 1.6/4.

Fox went with its sitcom in repeats -- except for its new show "Brothers," which averaged a poor 0.7/2 during the 7 p.m. hour.

CBS' "60 Minutes" benefited from its NFL overrun, bumping up to a 2.5/7 on the night. That turned out to be the highest-rated non-sports show of the night. A rerun of Fox's "Family Guy" at 9 p.m. was a close second at 2.5/6.

NBC was tops, with a 4.9/13 average among 18-49 viewers for the night. CBS was next with a 3.1/8, then Fox with a 1.6/4, followed by ABC with a 1.5/4 and Univision at a 1.0/3.