Football is the top draw during the holiday lull

The New England Patriots’ completion of the NFL’s first undefeated regular season since 1972 was both the most-watched show of the television season and the most-watched regular-season game since 1995, in a week when seven of the 15 most-watched prime-time television programs were NFL games or pre- or postgame shows.

The Patriots’ 38-35 victory over the New York Giants on Saturday averaged a combined 33.4 million viewers on CBS, NBC and cable’s NFL Network, according to figures released Thursday by Nielsen Media Research.

The audience was the largest for any television program since the Academy Awards on Feb. 25 and for any NFL regular season game since the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs’ Thanksgiving Day game in 1995.

The game was also shown on other stations in New York City, Boston and Manchester, N.H. Viewership figures for those channels were not available.

In a week when there was little original entertainment programming, as is TV’s custom during the final week of the year, CBS was the most-watched network for the 10th time in the season’s 14 weeks, with an average of 8.56 million viewers watching its prime-time programming between Dec. 24 and Sunday.

NBC was second with 8.21 million, followed by Fox with 6.06 million, ABC with 5.21 million and CW with 1.66 million.

NBC finished first among viewers ages 18 to 49, the group it, ABC and Fox target and advertisers covet.

ESPN was the week’s most-watched cable network, averaging 4.52 million viewers, making it the fifth most-watched network overall, behind only CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC.

Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (Dec. 24-30) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Nielsen estimates there are 286 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.

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Program Net- View- work ers 1 Sunday Night Football: NBC 15.80 Tennessee at Indianapolis 2 “Saturday Night Football CBS 15.68 Special: New England at NY Giants� (simulcast with NBC) 3 “Saturday Night Football NBC 13.23 Special: New England at NY Giants� (simulcast with CBS) 4 60 Minutes CBS 12.39 5 CSI CBS 10.69 6 Without a Trace CBS 10.54 7 “NFL Pregame� (Sun.) NBC 10.38 8 Deal or No Deal (Tue.) NBC 9.78 9 Amazing Race 12 CBS 9.68 10 CSI: NY CBS 9.49 11 Criminal Minds CBS 8.97 12 The OT (football postgame) FOX 8.79 13 Law & Order: SVU (Wed., 10 NBC 8.69 p.m.) 14 “NFL Pregame� (Sat.) NBC 7.98 15 Football Night in America, Part NBC 7.71 3 16 “The Sound of Music� ABC 7.65 17 Law & Order: SVU (Tue.) NBC 7.59 18 Cold Case CBS 7.55 19 Law & Order: SVU (Wed., 9 NBC 7.53 p.m.) 20 “Christmas With the Kranks� FOX 7.24 21 House FOX 7.23 22 NCIS CBS 7.16 23 The Simpsons FOX 6.90 24 Shark CBS 6.86 25 “Most Outrageous Moments� NBC 6.84 26 Numb3rs CBS 6.73 27 Women’s Murder Club (Fri.) ABC 6.60 28 Family Guy FOX 6.37 29 “Kennedy Center Honors� CBS 6.22 30 “Ice Age� FOX 6.17 31 Ghost Whisperer CBS 6.09 32 Grey’s Anatomy ABC 6.08 33 CSI: Miami CBS 6.06 34 American Dad FOX 5.90 35 Dateline: NBC (Fri.) NBC 5.77 36 Singing Bee NBC 5.71 37 Cops (8:30 p.m.) FOX 5.70 38 “Wonderful World Disney� ABC 5.62 39 20/20-Fri. ABC 5.54 40 America’s Most Wanted FOX 5.51 41 King of the Hill FOX 5.45 42 Two and a Half Men CBS 5.41 43 “Bruce Almighty� FOX 5.27 44 My Name Is Earl NBC 4.93 45 Cops (8 p.m.) FOX 4.89 46 Moonlight CBS 4.88 47 “Madagascar� ABC 4.79 48 The Unit CBS 4.78 49 Private Practice (Thu.) ABC 4.62 50 Friday Night Smackdown CW 4.57 51 Rules of Engagement CBS 4.54 52 Football Night in America, Part NBC 4.50 2 53 “It’s a Wonderful Life� NBC 4.49 54 Ugly Betty ABC 4.48 55 Pushing Daisies ABC 4.36 56 Bones FOX 4.25 Amar Sin Limites (Wed.) UNI 4.25 58 Yo Amo Juan Querendon (Wed.) UNI 4.24 59 Private Practice (Wed.) ABC 4.16 60 48 Hours Mystery CBS 4.14 61 Pasion (Wed.) UNI 4.12 62 30 Rock NBC 4.10 63 Bailando UNI 4.07 64 “How the Grinch Stole Christmas� ABC 4.00 65 Women’s Murder Club (Sat.) ABC 3.98 66 Amar Sin Limites (Thu.) UNI 3.96 Men in Trees ABC 3.96 68 The Office NBC 3.90 69 Pasion (Thu.) UNI 3.82 70 Retro P. Luche UNI 3.70 Familia P. Luche UNI 3.70 72 Yo Amo Juan Querendon (Fri.) UNI 3.58 73 Amar Sin Limites (Fri.) UNI 3.55 74 Pasion (Fri.) UNI 3.50 75 Yo Amo Juan Querendon (Thu.) UNI 3.44 76 How I Met Your Mother CBS 3.43 77 Samantha Who? (9:30 p.m.) ABC 3.42 78 Don Francisco Presenta UNI 3.39 79 The Big Bang Theory CBS 3.36 80 Dirty Sexy Money ABC 3.32 81 Samantha Who? (9 p.m.) ABC 3.26 82 Scrubs NBC 3.21 83 ER NBC 3.07 84 Samantha Who? (8:30 p.m.) ABC 3.05 85 Samantha Who? (8 p.m.) ABC 2.98 86 Sabado Gigante UNI 2.89 87 Aqui y Ahora UNI 2.80 88 “Cheaper by the Dozen� FOX 2.54 89 Hora Pico UNI 2.52 90 “Premio Lo Nuestro ‘07� UNI 2.49 91 Smallville CW 2.15 92 Cine Especial UNI 2.13 93 Parodia UNI 2.02 94 Familia de Diez UNI 1.93 95 Crowned (Wed.) CW 1.58 96 Cristina UNI 1.50 97 Everybody Hates Chris CW 1.34 98 “Family Television Awards� CW 1.16 99 Aliens in America (Mon.) CW 1.08 100 The Game CW 1.05 101 Gossip Girl CW 1.03 Girlfriends CW 1.03 103 Crowned (Mon.) CW 0.94 104 Reaper CW 0.90 Crowned (Tue.) CW 0.90 106 Life Is Wild CW 0.78 107 Aliens in America (Sun.) CW 0.75 108 CW Now CW 0.71 *--*

*--* Network averages Here is the number of viewers (in millions) that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season. Network Last Season week to date CBS 8.56 11.62 NBC 8.21 8.71 FOX 6.06 8.45 ABC 5.21 10.41 UNI 3.19 3.52 CW 1.66 2.81 *--*