NFL football telecasts helped land both ESPN and the NFL Network among the top three most watched cable networks in primetime last week.
ESPN averaged 2 million viewers in primetime during the week of December 12 to December 18 to top all networks, according to Nielsen. The network was fueled by the 10 million viewers who tuned into its December 12 New England Patriots-Arizona Cardinals Monday Night Football telecast.
NFL Network, which offered three NFL games on December 17 — including a primetime matchup between the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills that drew more than 11 million viewers — finished third for the week with an average of 1.7 million viewers.
Fox News, which tied ESPN for first place last week, finished in second place with 1.9 million viewers, with Hallmark Channel pulling into fourth place with 1.1 million viewers and MSNBC finishing fifth with 1 million watchers.
Paramount Network was sixth with 963,000 viewers, followed by TLC (876,000 viewers), History (738,000), HGTV (729,000), and Food Network (672,000).
Fox News topped the total day chart for the 50th consecutive week with an average of 1.3 million viewers, easily beating ESPN (800,000 viewers), NFL Network (752,000), Hallmark Channel (715,000), and MSNBC (700,000), according to Nielsen.■
