NBC made it four weeks in a row as the top-rated network in prime time among viewers most prized by advertisers, edging CBS by one-tenth of a point, according to the official Nielsen weekly numbers released Tuesday.
The network's recent success - after a decade of being last among younger viewers - has been the surprise of the season. There is a wider story, too, about how, NBC aside, the networks' ratings have been down this fall.
The winning streak for NBC had been threatened because CBS had a highly rated hour of run-over for its Jets-Patriots NFL afternoon game - an 8.2 rating for that hour - and NBC's own Sunday night game (Steelers-Bengals) was not a top-level match-up, scoring a 6.7 rating.
Still, NBC averaged a 2.6 rating for the week among viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, just ahead of the 2.5 for the week posted by CBS. As has been the case for years, CBS dominated among total viewers, averaging 10.3 million total viewers, to 7.5 million f or NBC.
ABC was a bit farther back in the 18-49 segment with a 2.3 rating (eight million total viewers), and Fox, which added to its consistent woes this fall with a disastrous rain-marred baseball night, scored only a 1.6 for the week (5.5 million total viewers).
That 18-49 number for Fox was down 47 percent from the same week last year (a 3.0). Over all, for the first four weeks of the season, Fox is down 24 percent from last year in the 18-49 group, while NBC is up 19 percent. CBS is down 18 percent and ABC is down 11 percent.
Earlier Coverage- NBC Finds Itself in Unfamiliar Territory: On Top
Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.
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