FOOTBALL POSTS HUGE RATINGS SCORES ON SUNDAY

Once again football was the name of the game on primetime network television Sunday as NBC’s Sunday Night Football (New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys) counted 18.6 million viewers, peaking in the 10:00 p.m. hour with 21 million, according to Nielsen Research. CBS and Fox also scored impressively with afternoon games that bled into the 7:00 p.m. hour, CBS’s tallying 17 million viewers; Fox’s, 9.4 million. While nothing came close to equaling NBC’s numbers, several non-football shows also posted strong numbers. CBS’s 60 Minutes attracted nearly 14 million viewers, while ABC’s Once Upon a Time corralled 8.9 million, and the season finale of The Amazing Race drew nearly 13 million. ABC, meanwhile, got little holiday cheer from a repeat of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which ended up with a wonky 3 million viewers.