• by Wayne Friedman , September 19, 2014

NBC won the 2013-2014 TV season in terms of program ratings, as well as the key metric for advertisers, largely due to pegging their media deals to C3.

The Nielsen commercial ratings plus three days of time-shifting measure (C3) showed that NBC pulled in an average 2.61 million 18-49 prime-time viewers in C3 for the period from Sept. 23, 2013 through August 31, 2014 -- up 12% versus a year ago, according to MoffettNathanson Research.

NBC was also helped by the Winter Olympics, as well as regular prime-time series “Sunday Night Football” and “The Voice.”

Fox also gained, largely as a result of the Super Bowl. It earned 2.301 million viewers, up 3% -- despite generally double-digit percentage declines in 18-49 viewership for its regularly scheduled prime-time series.

Virtually tied for third place were CBS and ABC. CBS was down 17% to 1.985 million 18-49 C3 viewers -- mostly due to unfavorable comparisons to a year before, when it had the Super Bowl. ABC also scored 1.985 million, down 5% from a year ago.

Looking at the total day C3 metric for 18-49 viewers, Fox was tops at 2.6 million 18-49 viewers, up 5% versus a year before; NBC was 14% higher with 1.24 million; ABC had 1.098 million, flat versus a year ago; and CBS down 11% to 1.088 million 18-49 viewers.