• by Wayne Friedman , December 29, 2008

NBC got another win on Sunday--in the midst of the usual lower-TV-viewing holiday period--with a below-season average-rated NFL game between the Denver Broncos and the San Diego Chargers.

 

The game offered up its best rating between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m., where it averaged a Nielsen Media Research preliminary 4.8 rating/13 share. The game's ratings trended down from there. Typically, NBC had been earning in the mid-five-rating range for 18-49 viewers for some of its more recent games.

Overall for the night, NBC earned a 4.0/11, with Fox in second at a 2.6/7 followed by CBS at 2.5/7, ABC at 1.6/4, Univision at 0.7/2, and the CW at 0.3/1.

In a rare head-to-head airing of NFL contests, CBS and Fox had games that were overrun at the same time in the 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. time period. CBS' AFC regional games--featuring the New York Jets losing to the Miami Dolphins--got the better of the Fox NFC regional contests, which featured which featured a big and easy victory by the Philadelphia Eagles over the Dallas Cowboys. CBS earned a 5.3/15 to Fox's 3.6/10 numbers.

No matter. Fox still got the best of CBS--going mostly with reruns against reruns--for the night with a 2.6/7 in the 18-49 viewer demographic for Fox against CBS' 2.5/7.

The lone original effort among the big four networks was CBS's "Million Dollar Password," which performed at about its average of previous outings, around a 2.0 rating/5 share.

Two networks went the movie route this holiday weekend--ABC and CW. ABC managed a 1.6/5 for "The Sound of Music," while the CW took in a more microscopic 0.3/1 for "Revenge of the Pink Panther."

NBC also won with younger 18-34 viewers for the night with a 3.2/10. Fox--also typically strong with young viewers--wasn't that far behind in second place, even with reruns of its animated comedies, reaching a 2.7/8.