Last week football came to the aid of the Fox (NWS-A) network as it propelled them to finish first in the prime-time network race last week, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The college national championship game between Ohio State Buckeyes and the Florida Gators drew a hefty 28.8 million viewers, who watche Florida win the game and title.
Fox also carried the second-highest viewed program with another football game, the NFL playoff game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New Orleans Saints, with New Orleans coming out the winner. It drew 27.4 million viewers for the night.
Carrying those two games helped Fox end up with an average of 15.3 million viewers for the prime-time audience between January 8 through January 14.
With an average viewership of 12.8 million, CBS (CBS) came in second for the week in prime-time. It's been the first place finisher in 15 out of 17 weeks so far this season.
The ABC (DIS) network was third in prime-time with an average of 8.7 million viewers for the week and NBC came in fourth of the big networks with an 8.4 million average.
The CW network, joint-owned by Warner Bros. (TWX) and CBS, was fifth with a 2.9 million average in prime-time.
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