ESPN catches a win with college, pro ball

It’s the most-watched network despite a drop in viewers from a year earlier.

are the combined rankings for national prime-time network and cable television last week (Dec. 28, 2015– Jan. 03, 2016) as compiled by Nielsen. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish during its scheduled telecast or on a playback device the same day. Nielsen estimates there are 289 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.

Even with a 33.4% drop in viewership for its primetime College Football Playoff semifinal from a year ago, college and pro football made ESPN the mostwatched network in the week combining the end of the old year and start of the new one.

ESPN averaged 8.64 million viewers for its primetime programming between Dec. 28 and Sunday, according to live-plus-same day figures released by Nielsen on Wednesday. CBS was second, averaging 6.7 million viewers, followed by NBC (6.66 million), ABC (4.1 million) and Fox (2.8 million).

Coverage by ESPN of Alabama’s 38-0 victory over Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve, which served as the primetime College Football Playoff semifinal, averaged 18.5 million viewers.

Ohio State’s 42-35 upset of Alabama’s Crimson Tide in last year’s prime-time College Football Playoff semifinal, also on ESPN, averaged 28.27 million viewers, then the largest audience in cable television history. (That record lasted until Ohio State’s 42-20 victory over Oregon in the inaugural College Football Playoff championship on Jan. 12, 2015, on ESPN, which averaged 33.4 million viewers.)

Despite the sharp drop in viewership, the game was still the second-mostwatched prime-time program between Dec. 28 and Sunday, only trailing the Minnesota Vikings’ 20-13 victory over the Green Bay Packers on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,”’ which averaged 24.29 million viewers.

The week’s mostwatched entertainment program was the 9:59-11 p.m. segment of ABC’s `”Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2016,”’ which averaged 13.02 million viewers, sixth overall. Viewership was up 90,000 viewers from a year earlier.