'The Voice' Finale Helps NBC to Weekly Ratings Win

The 16-year-old charmer who conquered The Voice with her old-school country touch helped boost NBC to a weekly ratings win.

Nearly 10 million viewers watched Chevel Shepherd win the singing contest, making it last week’s most popular entertainment show. Shepherd, of Farmington, New Mexico, was coached by another talent show discovery: inaugural American Idol victor Kelly Clarkson.

Football once again proved its ratings dominance, with broadcast and cable games and pre- or post-game shows claiming six of the week’s top 10 spots, according to Nielsen figures released Thursday (Dec. 27).

The top-ranked game — and program overall — was NBC’s Sunday night NFL showcase, in which the Seattle Seahawks clinched a spot in the NFC playoffs with a 38-31 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.

NBC won the week in prime time, averaging 6.7 million. CBS, aided by 60 Minutes and top 20 reruns of stalwart series including NCIS and The Big Bang Theory, followed with 6.4 million.

ABC had 3 million, Fox had 1.7 million, ION Television had 1.28 million, Univision had 1.2 million, Telemundo had 1 million and the CW had 790,000.

Prime-time TV viewing typically drops during the holidays for broadcast networks, but Fox was particularly hard hit as it marked its first week this fall without Thursday Night Football. For the week of Dec. 10, when the network’s L.A. Chargers-Kansas City telecast ranked second among all programs, the network averaged 5.1 million total viewers.

ESPN was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.8 million people in prime time. Holiday-spirited Hallmark had 2 million, MSNBC had 1.9 million, Fox News Channel had 1.87 million and CNN had 1.1 million.

ABC’s World News Tonight topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.7 million viewers. NBC’s Nightly News was second with 8.4 million and the CBS Evening News had 6.2 million.

For the week of Dec. 17-23, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Sunday Night Football: Kansas City at Seattle, NBC, 19.6 million; NFL Regular Season: New Orleans at Charlotte, ESPN, 13.3 million; Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick, NBC, 12.6 million; 60 Minutes, CBS, 12 million; NFL Sunday Postgame, Fox 10.3 million; The Voice (Tuesday), NBC, 9.9 million; The Voice (Monday), NBC 9.5 million; Thursday Night Football: Baltimore at Los Angeles Chargers, NFL Network, 8.2 million; Football Night in America, NBC. 8.1 million; Survivor, CBS, 7.7 million.