• by Wayne Friedman , September 10, 2007

NBC probably grabbed its only fall Thursday night victory last week when its NFL season opener crushed the other prime-time competitors--who were still mostly in summer rerun mode.

Because the Indianapolis Colts did their own crushing of the New Orleans Saints, 41-10, NBC didn't get the lift in rating it wanted--scoring a Nielsen preliminary 13 household rating and 21 share, down 11% from the same game a year ago, which featured a closer Pittsburgh Steelers-Miami Dolphins contest.

The game didn't even count for the official broadcast season--due to start, according to Nielsen, on September 24.

Still, a win is a win. All that gave NBC a Nielsen 6.4 rating average for 18-49 viewers, with Fox and CBS in a tie, running well behind at a 2.7/8. Univision ran fourth with a 1.6/5 bettering ABC's fifth spot, at 1.3/4. CW was at the bottom at a 0.7/2.

The football game earned a 7.0 rating among 18-49 viewers. The second-best show of the night was NBC's pre-game show at a 5.2 number. Next was CBS' "Big Brother" at a 3.0; Fox showed up on the leader board with a 2.9 for its "Don't Forget the Lyrics." After that, CBS typically came through with strong repeat of its dramas--a 2.6 for "CSI" and a 2.4 for "Without a Trace."

Univision grabbed a 2.1 for "Destilando Amor." CW tallied 0.8 for a rerun of "Smallville."