NEW YORK (AP) – With the presents unwrapped and the eggnog downed, television viewers on Christmas night were ready to watch attractive women open suitcases indicating to game-show contestants whether they had won a fortune or pittance.
Yes, the NBC game show “Deal or No Deal,” hosted by Howie Mandel, was the most-popular show on TV last week, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Not that it had much competition. Television networks were essentially on vacation, serving a steady diet of reruns. Another NBC game show that was one of the few original programs on the air, “1 vs 100,” also finished in Nielsen’s top 10.
The CBS special on the “Kennedy Center Honors” finished ninth in viewership for the week.
CBS hasn’t lost a week in the ratings all season, and last week was no exception. The network averaged 8.5 million viewers in prime time (5.5 rating, 10 share). NBC was second, averaging 7.7 million viewers (4.7, 8), Fox had 6.8 million (4.2, 7), ABC had 6.5 million (4.0, 7), the CW had 2 million (1.3, 2) and the i network had 570,000 (0.4, 1)
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision averaged 3.4 million viewers (1.8, 3), Telemundo had 770,000 (0.4, 1) and TeleFutura had 600,000 (0.3, 1).
NBC’s “Nightly News” won the evening-news ratings race, averaging 9.3 million viewers (6.3, 12). ABC’s “World News” had 8.9 million viewers (6.1, 12) and the “CBS Evening News” had 7.3 million (4.9, 9).
NBC’s “Nightly News” finished its tenth consecutive year atop the evening-news ratings, a stretch that began during Tom Brokaw’s tenure.
A ratings point represents 1,114,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 111.4 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of Dec. 25-31, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “Deal or No Deal,” NBC, 16.33 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 13.84 million; NFL Football: Green Bay at Chicago, NBC, 13.36 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 11.88 million; “1 vs 100,” NBC, 11.76 million; “NFL Post Game Show,” Fox, 11.06 million; “CSI: N.Y.,” CBS, 10.57 million; “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 10.03 million; “Kennedy Center Honors,” CBS, 9.94 million; “Shark,” CBS, 9.72 million.
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