• by Wayne Friedman , December 30, 2013

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” -- TV’s top-viewed show -- ended its season with soaring ratings on the last Sunday night of 2013.

For the last game of the regular season, the closely fought contest between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys posted a massive Nielsen preliminary 8.1 rating/21 share among 18-49 viewers and 23.9 million viewers overall. The week before, the football game series was at a 5.5 preliminary 18-49 rating.

NBC’s lead-in programming with “Football Night in America” and its “Pre-Kick” programming also had strong viewership -- earning a 6.2/17 among 18-49 viewers and 18.7 million overall from 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Early evening spillover NFL coverage from afternoon games gave Fox a 6.4/19 and 21.7 million overall viewers and CBS a 4.0/11 and 15.7 million overall viewers between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Fox’s post-game “The OT” between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. earned a 4.5/13 n the 18-49 demo and 14.6 million viewers.

The only other original programming for the night was CBS’ two-hour “Kennedy Center Honors,” taking in a 0.9/2 among 18-49 viewers and 7.1 million overall viewers. A year ago, “Honors” was at a 1.4 rating.

For the night, NBC overall posted a Nielsen 6.5/17 among 18-49 viewers and 19.2 million overall viewers. Fox scored a 2.9/8 and 8.7 million viewers, followed by CBS at 1.8/5 and 9.8 million viewers and ABC with 1.1/3 and 4.2 million viewers.