NEW YORK (AP) - CBS not only held its customary top spot in prime-time viewership last week, but also forecast itself the winner of the November ratings sweep, its 10th consecutive victory in that competition.
An important measuring period among the networks, the current sweep ends Wednesday and should find CBS averaging 11.2 million viewers, the network said. ABC is projected to be second with 9.6 million viewers, trailed by Fox (7.8 million) and NBC (7.2 million). CBS' November winning streak began in 2001.
Meanwhile, in this 9-week-old season, CBS has logged its seventh win, the Nielsen Co. said Tuesday.
Only football and dancing intruded on CBS' claim on the Top 15 shows last week. The game between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles on NBC was the week's most-watched broadcast. ABC's Monday edition of "Dancing With the Stars" was runner-up, while the Tuesday results show ranked fifth.
For the week, CBS averaged 11.7 million viewers (7.2 rating, 12 share), followed by ABC's 9.3 million (5.8 rating, 10 share). NBC averaged 7.6 million viewers (4.8 rating, 8 share). Fox had 6.1 million (3.6 rating, 6 share), the CW had 1.9 million (1.2 rating, 2 share) and ION Television had 1.2 million (0.8 rating, 1 share).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a prime-time average of 4 million viewers (2.0 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.5 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 940,000 (0.5 rating, 1 share), Estrella had 280,000 (0.1 rating, 0 share) and Azteca had 240,000 (0.1 rating, 0 share).
Among the network evening newscasts, NBC's "Nightly News" was on top with an average 9.4 million viewers (6.2 rating, 12 share), while ABC's "World News" had 7.9 million (5.3 rating, 10 share) and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.1 million (4.1 rating, 8 share).
A ratings point represents 1,159,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 115.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of Nov. 15-21, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships:
NFL Football: NY Giants at Philadelphia, NBC, 23.20 million; "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 20.68 million; "NCIS," CBS, 19.43 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 17.73 million; "Dancing With the Stars Results," ABC, 17.43 million; "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 17.22 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 15.81 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 14.74 million; "Criminal Minds," CBS, 14.39 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 14.25 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 is a unit 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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