Nellie Andreeva

With football season heading into the home stretch, NBC’s Sunday Night Football last night had another strong showing with a 14.2 household rating. NBC dominated the night as it has done every Sunday this season, with viewership for the game expected to be around the 20 million mark. CBS and Fox switched places again, with Fox benefiting from a late afternoon NFL game spilling into primetime this time around. Surprisingly, the football overrun, which scored a 7.0/19 rating in adults 18-49 from 7-8 PM provided little boost for Fox’s Sunday comedies, which last week posted big double-digit gains in their return after a two-week MLB preemption. Last night, The Simpsons (3.9/10) was up a modest 5% and may be adjusted down as it includes two minutes of an NFL overrun. The Cleveland Show (3.1/7) was up 3%, while Family Guy (3.3/8) was down 13% and American Dad! (2.6/6) was down 10%.

Also retreating after posting across-the-board rating increases last week was ABC’s Sunday lineup. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (2.2/5) was down 12%. Desperate Housewives (3.7/9) was down 8% from its fast national number last week, while Brothers & Sisters (2.5/7) was down a tenth. (Desperate Housewives was adjusted up a tenth and Brothers & Sisters slipped a tenth in the finals last week.)

At CBS, 60 Minutes (1.8/5) was down 45%, which is an average gain-loss for the venerable newsmagazine depending whether it follows a football telecast or not. (Last Sunday, it did.) The Amazing Race (2.7/7) was also down from last week, when it was boosted by some halo effect from the NFL overrun. But the football-related CBS scheduling shifts has had negative impact on sophomore reality series Undercover Boss (2.7/6). The show, which often gets pushed to 10 PM by football ,posted a series low last night. Ditto for veteran crime drama CSI: Miami (2.4/6), which often gets pushed out when CBS carries a late-afternoon game. Last night, the series was down 8% from its last original on Oct. 31. In the fast nationals, CBS (2.4/6, 10.9 million) is running fourth in the 18-49 demo, edged by ABC (2.5/6, 9 million)

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