Fox's championship-chasing football teams played a big part in helping it win the prime-time ratings, just a week before its' championship contender 'American Idol', returns to the small screen. The National Football League's Arizona-Carolina play-off and Fiesta Bowl's Texas-Ohio State contest at No. 8, were among last week's most-watched prime-time shows.

In the lead, according to Nielsen Media Research was CBS's AFC divisional play-off game between the Chargers and Steelers, which drew a record audience of
34.1-million viewers. Fox's NFC divisional play-off game between the Eagles and Giants grabbed second place with 31.4-million viewers, followed by Fox's BCS Championship football game between Florida and Oklahoma at No. 3, while the AFC divisional play-off game on CBS between Baltimore and Nashville was at No. 4; at No. 5 we had the Fox NFC divisional play-off game between the Cardinals and Panthers with 23.8-million viewers.

'The Mentalist', CBS' crime solving drama was TV's top newcomer at No. 6, the only non-NFL programming among the Top Ten, while 'NCIS' stood at No. 7, '60 Minutes' grabbed the No. 10 spot.

TV ratings for last week were as under:
1.    Fox - 14.2-million viewers (8.4 rating, 13 share).
2.    CBS - 11.7-million viewers (7.3, 12).
3.    NBC - 8.3-million (5.2, 8).
4.    ABC 7.8-million (5.0, 8).
5.    CW 1.8-million (1.2, 2).
6.    My Network TV - 1.7-million (1.1, 2).
7.    ION Television - 650,000 (0.4, 1).

It was Univision that led among the Spanish-language networks - 3.9 million (1.9, 3), followed by Telemundo - 1.3 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura - 640,000 (0.3, 1) and Azteca - 120,000 (0.1, 0).

Of the news channels, NBC's 'Nightly News' was in the lead with an average of 9.9-million viewers (6.5, 12), followed by ABC's 'World News' with 9.1-million (6.0, 11) and 'CBS Evening News' was in third place with 7.3-million viewers (4, 8).

With one ratings point representing 1,145,000 households, or 1% of the nation's estimated 114.5-million TV homes, the top ten shows for the week of 5 - 11 January were as follows:
1.    College Football: Oklahoma vs. Florida , Fox, 26.77 million.
2.    NFL Football: Arizona vs. Carolina , Fox, 23.78 million.
3.    'AFC Football Post-Game', CBS, 21.35-million.
4.    'The Mentalist', CBS, 19.62-million.
5.    'NCIS', CBS, 19.1-million.
6.    College Football: Texas vs. Ohio St. , Fox, 17.06-million.
7.    '60 Minutes', CBS, 15.03-million.
8.    'Golden Globe Awards', NBC, 14.86 million.
9.    'Grey's Anatomy', ABC, 13.87 million.
10.    'Desperate Housewives', ABC, 13.79 million.

As for channel ownership, it is as under:
1.    Walt Disney Co. owns ABC.
2.    CBS Corp. CW, a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp owns CBS.
3.    News Corp. owns Fox and My Network TV.
4.    General Electric Co. owns NBC and Telemundo.
5.    ION Media Networks owns ION Television.
6.    Univision owns TeleFutura.
7.    TV Azteca S. A. de C. V. has a wholly owned subsidiary in the name of Azteca America .