RECORD RATINGS FOR SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

An average of 23.7 million viewers tuned in to NBC’s Sunday Night Football on New Year’s Day. The contest between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys peaked in the final hour with 25.6 million viewers. The ratings were given an unintended added boost by the competition, which offered only reruns in opposition. According to TheWrap.com, it was the highest-rated game ever broadcast by NBC since it began airing Sunday Night Football six years ago, and it produced the best overnight rating for any NFL primetime final-game-of-the-regular-season telecast in 17 years. (Ratings in 1995, however, reflected a smaller number of actual viewers than they do now; TheWrap did not indicated how many viewers watched the earlier game.) Also on Sunday, an NFL overrun on CBS at 7:00 p.m. pulled in 20.4 million viewers.