It was a total touchdown for Fox on Friday night. The network took the night with the Cotton Bowl (3.1/9) as Texas A&M soundly beat their former Big 12 rival Oklahoma. 11.207 million viewers, solidly ahead of anything else on TV last night, watched the college football game. While ratings of the live event are approximate and subject to greater change than usual in the final numbers, last night’s 8–10 PM broadcast was up solidly from the 2.5 rating the Cotton Bowl scored on January 6, 2012. Fox won the night in overall viewers and among the adult 18-49 demographic.
Back with original shows after three weeks, ABC’s comedies Last Man Standing (1.4/4) and Malibu Country (1.2/4) were both down from the 1.5 rating they earned on their December 14 airing. A new Shark Tank (1.8/5) followed, watched by 6.338 million last night. The reality show was down a tenth from the 1.9 rating its last original Friday broadcast drew back on November 16. At 10 PM, ABC had 20/20 (1.4/4) devoted to weight loss. Back after two weeks of preemptions, the news magazine show was down from the 1.6 rating it got on December 14. On CBS, there were also dips. Undercover Boss (1.5/5) was down from the 1.6 rating the reality show had on its last original show on December 7. CSI: NY (1.4/4) pulled in 9.176 million on Friday, making it the third most watched show of the night, but the police procedural was down from the 1.5 rating it had on its last original broadcast. While it was the second most watched show of the night with 9.946 million viewers, Blue Bloods (1.3/4) was down a tenth from its December 7 show’s 1.4 rating. CBS was overall the second most watched network of the night with an average of 8.878 million viewers.
NBC kicked off the night with double repeats of Go On at 8 PM (0.6/2) and 8:30 PM (0.6/2). The comedy encores were followed at 9 PM by a two-hour Dateline (1.5/4) that examined a Utah teen murder. Down from the 1.7 of last week’s repeat, Dateline had an audience of 5.677 million viewers last night. The CW ran repeats of Nikita (0.3/1) and Arrow (0.3/1)
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.


Those are decent demo and total viewership numbers for both ABC and CBS. College football bowl games usually score biger than average numbers and this season has been exceptionally good to the college game. Monday’s national championship is going to set a television viewership record that’s likely in the 40 million range and will easily destroy viewing on the major networks. CBS’ comedies will probably take the biggest hit. That said, I’m sure the big four are just hoping for respectable numbers against these huge football games, which is what they got last night. Besides, it’s the major netowrks own fault that football and basketball kill their programming. They just have to hope that the NCAA doesn’t launch its own network and decide to keep their goodies at home one day. The NFL and NBA networks are already huge and could one day do this very thing.