NEW YORK (AP) - First came critical acclaim, then awards and now status as genuine hits for Fox's "Glee" and ABC's "Modern Family."
Both shows are up sharply in viewers for their sophomore season. Audiences followed the acclaim and checked things out for themselves.
"Glee" is a pop culture phenomenon, and its audience is up 43 percent over last season at the same time. The Nielsen Co. said the "Modern Family" viewership has increased 37 percent over last season.
"Glee" won a Golden Globe award last winter for best comedy or musical and led all other TV programs with five Golden Globe nominations that were announced on Tuesday. "Modern Family" won the Emmy a few months ago for best comedy and was responsible for three Golden Globe nominations this season.
They came at the right time for their networks. "Glee," with 11 million viewers, had a bigger audience than any other show on Fox last week. It is going on hiatus until a special episode right after the Super Bowl, returning with regular episodes two days later.
"Modern Family" had 11.1 million viewers last week, second only to "Desperate Housewives" among ABC's regularly-scheduled shows.
It was a good week for some veteran Nielsen performers. Back-to-back Barbara Walters specials on ABC, one with an Oprah Winfrey interview and the other her annual most fascinating people show, finished in Nielsen's top 10. CBS' "60 Minutes," featuring Lesley Stahl's interview with House Republican leader John Boehner, was the most-watched nonfootball show on TV.
As it has for all but one week this season, CBS topped its rivals by averaging 10.5 million viewers (6.4, 11). NBC, behind the strength of "Sunday Night Football," finished second with an 8.8 million average (5.3, 9). ABC had 7 million (4.4, 7), Fox had 5.7 million (3.3, 5), the CW had 2.2 million (1.4, 2) and ION Television had 1.2 million (0.8, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a prime-time average of 3.7 million viewers (1.8 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 890,000 (0.5, 1), TeleFutura had 870,000 (0.4, 1), and both Estrella and Azteca averaged 200,000 viewers (0.1, 0).
NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.4 million viewers (6.1, 12). ABC's "World News" was second with 8.4 million (5.6, 11) and the "CBS Evening News" had 6 million viewers (4.0, 8).
A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of Dec. 6-12, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: Philadelphia at Dallas, NBC, 25.73 million; "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 17.68 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 17.59 million; "Criminal Minds," CBS, 14.23 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 13.409 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 13.405 million; "Barbara Walters Special," ABC, 13.27 million; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 13.17 million; "Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People, "10" ABC, 12.22 million; "Survivor: Nicaragua," CBS, 12.13 million.
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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.
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