NEW YORK (AP) — Professional football is the lifeblood of live television this time of year. And it illustrated its dominance in the ratings last week.
Four NFL games finished among the Nielsen company's 20 most popular prime-time programs, with NBC's Sunday night and Fox's Thursday contests the top two. Both games featured Los Angeles teams.
Add in three pre-game shows, and football accounted for seven of Nielsen's entries.
The games usually dwarf regular programming. For example, Fox drew 17.4 million to its Thursday night game. Its most popular non-football show, the comedy "Last Man Standing," had 12 million fewer viewers.
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