• by Wayne Friedman , December 10, 2012

Late-season NFL programming continued to raise the value for the broadcast networks on Sunday night.

NBC had a big Detroit Lions/Green Bay Packers game for its "Sunday Night Football" series and grabbed a Nielsen preliminary 6.9 rating/ 17 share among 18-49 viewers, up three-tenths of a rating point from the game it aired week before.

Earlier in the evening, Fox also had some strong NFL viewership from a spillover of its late-afternoon game between the New Orleans Saints and New York Giants -- giving the network an early boost in prime time, moving into the 6+ rating territory. Adding in its viewership of its post-game "The O.T." gave Fox a 6.1/17 between the 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. hour.

For Sunday night as a whole, NBC averaged a 5.7/14 -- up from its 5.3/13 the week before. Fox earned a 3.5/9 -- almost double its 1.7/4 of the week before. CBS was at a 2.2/5, down from a 3.2/8. ABC scored a 1.6/4, down from its 2.1/5 pf the previous week. Univision scored a 1.4/3, improving from a 1.1/3.

After all the football programming, the next best-rated show was Fox's longtime franchise "The Simpsons," with a 3.4/9. Two other Fox comedies did well: "Family Guy" with a 2.8/7 and "American Dad" at a 2.2/5.

CBS scored its best with a two-hour season finale of "The Amazing Race" at 2.6/5 -- down a bit from the week before but way off at 30% lower from the last December's finale.

Against stiff competition, ABC had its own troubles but managed to find a sliver of light with its 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Hallmark Hall of Fame movie "Christmas with Holly," which earned a 1.8/4. This was the network's best result with the family movie franchise.

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