"Facts of Life," "Diff'rent Strokes" remakes, NFL score strong ratings; Nielsen week in review

Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021

"Facts of Life," "Diff'rent Strokes" remakes, NFL score strong ratings; Nielsen week in review

Green Bay Packers' Davante Adams gets past Chicago Bears' DeAndre Houston-Carson during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021, in Green Bay, Wis. This NFL Sunday Night Football game finished first in the week's Nielsen ratings. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

By
David Bauder, Media Writer

NEW YORK (AP)
--

Everything old is new again — at least for ABC's audience.

The network's special, star-filled live presentations of old episodes of "The Facts of Life" and "Diff'rent Strokes" reached some 4.8 million viewers last week, the Nielsen company said.

That wasn't earth-shattering, and didn't even crack Nielsen's list of top 30 programs. But it was the network's most-watched program. With stars like Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Hart, John Lithgow, Jon Stewart and Snoop Dogg, the annual exercise hosted by Jimmy Kimmel got some good word-of-mouth.

Otherwise, it was a fairly typical week in television, with football dominating and CBS' "60 Minutes" the top non-sports broadcast.

CBS eked out a weekly win, averaging 5.94 million viewers in primetime to NBC's 5.89 million. Fox averaged 4.5 million, ABC had 2.8 million, Univision had 1.5 million, Telemundo had 1 million and Ion Television had 880,000.

ESPN was the top cable network in primetime, averaging 2.49 million viewers. Fox News Channel had 2.3 million, Hallmark had 1.57 million, MSNBC had 1.12 million and Paramount had 894,000.

ABC's "World News Tonight" won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8 million viewers. NBC's "Nightly News" had 7.4 million viewers and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.2 million.

For the week of Dec. 6-12, the top 20 primetime telecasts, their networks and viewers:

1. NFL Football: Chicago at Green Bay, NBC, 18.56 million.
2. NFL Football: Pittsburgh at Minnesota, Fox, 14.04 million.
3. NFL Football: New England at Buffalo, ESPN, 13.28 million.
4. "NFL Pregame," NBC, 12.48 million.
5. "NFL Postgame," Fox, 10.93 million.
6. "60 Minutes," CBS, 9.32 million.
7. "NFL Pregame," Fox, 8.78 million.
8. "Yellowstone," Paramount, 7.54 million.
9. "Football Night in America, Part 3," NBC, 7.35 million.
10. "NCIS," CBS, 7.25 million.
11. "FBI," CBS, 7.03 million.
12. "Young Sheldon," CBS, 6.96 million.
13. "The Voice" (Tuesday), NBC, 6.89 million.
14. "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 6.79 million.
15. "Chicago Fire," NBC, 6.77 million.
16. "NFL Pregame," ESPN, 6.72 million.
17. "Chicago Med," NBC, 6.59 million.
18. "FBI: International," CBS, 5.79 million.
19. "Blue Bloods," CBS, 5.76 million.
20. "Ghosts," CBS, 5.75 million.