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NFL ratings beat out President Obama’s address

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CBS was the week’s most-watched network for the 12th time in the 17-week-old prime-time television season, despite NBC’s near-record viewership for its NFL coverage.

NFL football games were the most watched on television, with the four playoff games from Saturday and Sunday averaging 36.2 million viewers. Sunday’s matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos was the most viewed program, with an average of 43 million viewers.

The Carolina Panthers vs. Seattle Seahawks game averaged 36.7 million viewers, the Arizona Cardinals vs. Green Bay Packers game averaged 33.7 million viewers, and the New England Patriots vs. Kansas City Chiefs match averaged 31.5 million viewers.

In contrast, President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address drew 31.3 million viewers across 12 networks.

CBS had each of the four most-watched entertainment programs and the 11 most-watched scripted series between Jan. 11 and Sunday, averaging 10.56 million viewers, according to live-plus-same day figures released by Nielsen Wednesday.

n a week when the Tuesday’s schedule was altered because of President Obama’s State of the Union address, NBC was second, averaging 9.63 million, followed by Fox, which averaged 4.19 million, and ABC, which averaged 3.87 million, fourth among the broadcast networks and fifth overall behind the cable all-sports network ESPN.

CBS’ most-watched program was the news magazine “60 Minutes,” which averaged 20.62 million viewers, fifth overall, behind two football games and NFL pregame and postgame shows.

“60 Minutes” benefited from a 56-minute runover of CBS’ coverage of the Denver-Pittsburgh NFL playoff game, which ended six minutes before the start of “60 Minutes” in the Eastern and Central time zones.

The runover averaged 48.91 million viewers. The runover is not considered a separate program, but is included in the weekly average.

CBS’ most-watched entertainment program was the comedy “The Big Bang Theory,” sixth overall averaging 15.75 million viewers, the only entertainment program averaging more than 12 million viewers.

The week’s most-watched program was NBC’s coverage of Saturday’s overtime Arizona-Green Bay NFL divisional playoff game, which averaged 33.73 million viewers. The audience was the second-largest for a Saturday prime-time NFL divisional playoff game, trailing only the Jan. 14, 2012, game between Denver and New England that averaged 34.2 million viewers on CBS.

The NFL has been playing divisional playoff games in prime time on Saturdays since the 2001 season.

The audience was the largest for a prime-time program this season. The season’s largest audience for a prime-time program before last week was 31.23 million for CBS’ coverage of the Cincinnati-Pittsburgh wild card round NFL playoff game on Jan. 9.

NBC’s most-watched entertainment program was “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” which was 24th among the week’s prime-time programs, averaging 8.01 million viewers.

The week’s only premiere on the four major broadcast networks, the Fox science fiction drama “Second Chance,” averaged 4.71 million viewers, fourth in its Wednesday 9-10 p.m. time slot and 53rd for the week.

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