Twin football games leads Fox to ratings win

With pro football games accounting for all of its prime time programming on Tuesday and Thursday, Fox led the television networks in viewership last week

The network’s coverage of Tuesday’s game between Dallas and Baltimore, and Thursday’s New England-L.A. Rams matchup took up their entire prime-time schedules for the nights.

The Nielsen company said CBS’ “60 Minutes” was the most-watched non-football program for the week. The venerable drama “NCIS” was the most popular entertainment program.

Fox averaged 7.3 million viewers in prime time for the week. NBC was second with 5.2 million viewers, CBS had 4.6 million, ABC had 3.8 million, Univision had 1.4 million, Telemundo had 1.01 million and Ion Television had 960,000.

Fox News Channel led among the cable networks, averaging 2.69 million viewers in prime time. ESPN had 2.22 million, MSNBC had 2.09 million, CNN had 1.77 million and Hallmark had 1.6 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” led the evening news ratings race with an average of 9.4 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7.9 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.7 million.

For the week of Dec. 7-13, the 20 most-watched programs, their networks and viewerships:

1. NFL Football: Pittsburgh at Buffalo, NBC, 17.05 million.

2. NFL Football: New England at L.A. Rams, Fox, 13.64 million.

3. NFL Football: Dallas at Baltimore, Fox, 13.54 million.

4. “NFL Pregame,” NBC, 13.03 million.

5. “The OT,” Fox, 10.43 million.

6. “Football Night in America,” NBC, 9.13 million.

7. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 9.1 million.

8. “NFL Pregame,” Fox, 9.07 million.

9. “NCIS,” CBS, 8.53 million.

10. NFL Football: Buffalo vs. San Francisco, ESPN, 7.76 million.

11. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 6.95 million.

12. “FBI,” CBS, 6.71 million.

13. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.64 million.

14. NFL Football: Buffalo vs. San Francisco, ABC, 6.41 million.

15. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 6.38 million.

16. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 6.04 million.

17. “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, 5.69 million.

18. “Magnum, P.I., CBS, 5.685 million.

19. “Station 19,” ABC, 5.58 million.

20. “Bob Hearts Abishola,” CBS, 5.28 million.