TV Ratings: Patriots-Ravens gives CBS a dominant Sunday win

Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens, who beat the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game.

Credit: AP

Fast National ratings for Sunday, January 20, 2013.

On Sunday night, there was football, and there was everything else. CBS, which aired the AFC Championship Game for most of primetime, nearly tripled the total audience of the other three broadcast networks, with 34.55 million viewers and an 11.9 rating among adults 18-49.

For the second week in a row, ABC aired original episodes of its Sunday dramas and got low numbers as a result, but still finished in second with a 1.7 demo rating and 5.93 million viewers overall. FOX was third (1.6, 3.35 million), followed by NBC (0.8, 2.44 million).

7 p.m. -- The Patriots-Ravens game, which started at 6:30, dominated the hour, with a 14.7 demo rating and 42.87 million viewers. Repeats of "Bob's Burgers" and "The Cleveland Show" were second in the demo for FOX (1.4, 3.02 million), though ABC's "America's Funniest Home Videos" (1.3, 6.27 million) was second in total viewers. They were followed by "The Biggest Loser" repeat on NBC (0.6, 2.06 million).

8 p.m. -- More football, more dominance, with Pats-Ravens averaging a 14.6 demo rating and 41.95 million viewers. ABC's "Once Upon a Time" (2.4, 7.71 million) was a distant second, followed by "The Simpsons" and "Bob's Burgers" repeats on FOX (1.7, 3.61 million) and more "Biggest Loser" on NBC (0.8, 2.3 million).

9 p.m. -- Lather, rinse, repeat, with the AFC Championship Game averaging a 14.3 in the demo for the hour and 39.77 million viewers. ABC was way back in second with "Revenge" (1.7, 5.71 million), followed by "Family Guy" and "American Dad" repeats on FOX (1.6, 3.43 million) and still more "Biggest Loser" on NBC (0.9, 2.42 million).

10 p.m. -- CBS' football coverage ran until 10:15 before giving way to a new "Hawaii Five-0," together averaging a 4.1 demo rating and 13.6 million overall, but the preliminary numbers have the network averaging a 5.4 in the demo in the first half hour (when football overrun was factored in) and only a 2.7 in the second half hour (when "Five-0" was the only thing being measured). A "Shark Tank" repeat at 10 was a distant second for ABC (1.3, 4.02 million), followed by more "Biggest Loser" on NBC (1.1, 2.97 million).

Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching

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Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com