• Mediaweek, Wednesday, January 10, 2007 11:30 AM

The end of the National Football League's regular season on New Year's Eve brought with it the close of ESPN's stranglehold on national cable ratings.

For the first time since the sports net began running "Monday Night Football," ESPN last week was out of contention for the top ad-supported cable spot--and even dropped out of the top 10 with an average prime time audience of 1.05 million total viewers and a 0.9 household rating.

However, it still got the most-watched program on cable last week as the Outback Bowl delivered about 5.7 million viewers and 2.72 million adults 25-54. The highest-rated cable net for the first week of the year was the Disney Channel, with 2.76 million total viewers and a 2.3 rating in prime time.

But among ad-supported nets, USA finished in first place with an average 2.51 million prime time viewers and accounting for the second- and third-place programs, with its Monday night "WWE Raw." Rounding out the top five were TNT, TBS, Lifetime and A&E.

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