Chargers-Colts playoff leads NBC to ratings win

NEW YORK — The San Diego Chargers-Indianapolis Colts game on NBC was seen by 27.8 million viewers Saturday, as football shook up the prime-time ratings on an otherwise quiet week for television.

The National Football League playoff had nearly twice the audience of the most popular prime-time entertainment series, ABC's "Desperate Housewives," according to Nielsen Media Research.

CBS had its biggest audience for the "Kennedy Center Honors" since 2005, and NBC had some positive numbers for its "Superstars of Dance" series.

The football game led NBC to a rare weekly victory in the ratings, averaging 9.4 million viewers (5.7 rating, 10 share). Fox had 8.7 million viewers (5.2, 9), CBS 8.4 million (5.3, 9), ABC 6.5 million (3.9, 6), My Network TV 1.7 million (1.0, 2), the CW 1.3 million (0.8, 1) and ION Television 620,000 (0.4, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.5 million prime-time viewer average (1.7 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.5, 1), TeleFutura 730,000 (0.4, 1) and Azteca 130,000 (0.1, 0).

The 9.5 million viewers who tuned into NBC's "Nightly News" last week would have put it among the top 20 prime-time shows. The three newscasts together were seen by nearly 25 million people. First-place NBC averaged a 6.1 rating and 11 share. ABC's "World News" was second with 8.1 million (5.5, 10) and the "CBS Evening News" had 7.3 million viewers (4.7, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,145,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.5 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Dec. 29-Jan. 4, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Playoff: Indianapolis vs. San Diego, NBC, 27.79 million; "NFL Playoff Pre-Kick," NBC, 21.87 million; "NFC Wildcard Post-Game," Fox, 16.42 million; "Desperate Housewives," ABC, 14.39 million; "NCIS," CBS, 13.43 million; Sugar Bowl: Alabama vs. Utah, Fox, 13.37 million; "Cold Case," CBS, 12.67 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 12.32 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 11.87 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 11.36 million.

___

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

___

On the Net:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com

___