Football, reality competition conclusions dominate TV

Television viewers were in the mood for competition last week

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Football and other forms of televised competition — the season finales of some popular reality shows — dominated the Nielsen company's weekly list of the most popular shows on television.

Four separate NFL games were on Nielsen's list of the most popular programs in prime-time. As is typical, NBC s Sunday night game, most recently featuring New Orleans surprise shutout of the Tampa Bay Bucs, topped the list.

NBC's “The Voice,” CBS “Survivor” and Fox's “The Masked Singer” all crowned winners this past week and had fans tuning in. “The Voice,” with 7.3 million viewers for the first of two parts on Monday, had the highest numbers.

One television staple, ABC s showing of “The Sound of Music” movie, reached 3.3 million people on Sunday night, Nielsen said.

Fox won the week in prime time among broadcast networks, averaging 5.7 million viewers last week. NBC had 5.1 million, CBS had 3.8 million, ABC had 3.5 million, Univision had 1.3 million, Ion Television had 1 million and Telemundo had 910,000.

Fox News Channel won among the cable networks, averaging 2.2 million in prime time. ESPN had 1.89 million, Hallmark had 1.48 million, MSNBC had 1.3 million and Paramount had 1.07 million.

ABC's “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.2 million viewers. NBC's “Nightly News” had 7.5 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.1 million.

For the week of Dec. 13-19, the 20 most popular shows, their networks and viewerships:

1. NFL Football: New Orleans at Tampa Bay, NBC, 18.06 million.

2. NFL Football: Kansas City at L.A. Chargers, Fox, 17.86 million.

3. “NFL Pregame,” NBC, 12.17 million.

4. “The OT,” Fox, 11.18 million.

5. “NFL Pregame,” Fox, 9.26 million.

6. “Football Night in America, Part 3,” NBC, 8.92 million.

7. “FBI,” CBS, 8.31 million.

8. NFL Football: L.A. Rams at Arizona, ABC, 7.97 million.

9. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.94 million.

10. NFL Football: L.A. Rams at Arizona, ESPN, 7.93 million.

11. “Yellowstone,” Paramount, 7.74 million.

12. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 7.28 million.

13. NFL Football: New England at Indianapolis, NFL Network, 7.26 million.

14. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.98 million.

15. “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS, 6.86 million.

16. “Survivor,” CBS, 5.61 million.

17. “The Masked Singer,” Fox, 5.08 million.

18. “1883,” Paramount, 4.98 million.

19. “NFL Pregame,” ABC, 4.74 million.

20. “Football Night in America, Part 2,” NBC, 4.73 million.