FOOTBALL TURNS LIGHTS OUT ON GLOBES

Sunday night’s telecast of the Golden Globe awards on NBC had to contend with a massive audience for the NFL playoff game between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers on Fox. According to overnight Nielsen ratings, the runover at 7:00 p.m. drew 40.1 million viewers, reducing the audience for the Globes’ red-carpet special to 7.35 million. The football telecast also provided a big lead-in boost for The Simpsons, which counted 15.7 million viewers at 8:00 p.m. versus the Globes’ 14.3 million in that hour. But the awards telecast dominated the rest of the night, averaging 13.85 million viewers — virtually flat with last year. Football also prevailed in the ratings on Saturday, as the playoff game between the Boston Patriots and the Denver Broncos attracted 29.06 million viewers, the biggest audience to watch an AFC divisional playoff game in 18 years, according to CBS, which carried it. That figure was nearly twice the total of the other three networks combined.