Football reigned in prime time last week while CBS retained its Nielsen ratings crown

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Football scored half of the Top 10 slots in last week's Nielsen ratings.

NBC took first place with its Sunday night faceoff between San Francisco and Denver, and the pregame took second place.

CBS' Thursday game ranked fifth as the New York Jets took on the New England Patriots. Fox's Sunday "The OT" post-game show ranked seventh place. And Notre Dame met Florida State on ABC's Saturday night telecast, ranking ninth.

Overall, CBS won the weekly Nielsen prime-time clash for a fourth straight week and claimed the top three freshmen shows: "NCIS: New Orleans" (ranked fourth), "Madam Secretary" (13th) and "Scorpion" (14th), according to Nielsen figures released Tuesday.

ABC's most-watched new series, "How to Get Away With Murder," ranked 21st, with 9.79 million viewers.

For the week, CBS averaged 10.5 million viewers in prime time. NBC was runner-up with 8.9 million, followed by ABC with 7.9 million and Fox with 4.7 million. Univision had 2.9 million, the CW had 1.9 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million, and ION Television had 1.0 million.

Among cable networks, ESPN led with an average 2.61 million viewers, followed by TBS with 2.04 million, USA with 1.76 million and Fox News Channel with 1.73 million.

NBC's "Nightly News" held its leadership position among the evening newscasts with an average of 8.78 million viewers. ABC's "World News" was second with 8.10 million, and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.44 million viewers.

For the week of Oct. 13-19, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: San Francisco at Denver, NBC, 23.79 million; "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 17.76 million; "NCIS," CBS, 17.26 million; "NCIS: New Orleans," CBS, 16.14 million; NFL Football: NY Jets at New England, CBS, 16.09 million; "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 15.32 million; "The OT," Fox, 13.78 million; "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 13.28 million; Football: Notre Dame at Florida State, ABC, 13.25 million; "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 12.74 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and Fox News Channel are owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC, Telemundo and USA are owned by Comcast Corp. ESPN is owned by ESPN Inc. TBS is owned by Time Warner. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.