Football, Nbc | featured news

The 2013 Pro Bowl gave NBC a win among adults 18-49 and total viewers on Sunday night. Fast National returns are approximate, but before time zone adjustments the NFC-AFC matchup pulled a 3.3 rating in the key demo. That's down 8 percent from last year's game. With the pre-game special (3.0 adults), the network averaged a 3.3 adults rating and 9.9 million viewers.

Want to reach ultra conservatives? Advertise your message or candidate on ESPN’s college football regular season, NBC’s “Today with Kathie Lee & Hoda,” or ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.” Need to talk to Super Democrats? Say it on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” or NBC’s faux-latenight-show comedy “30 Rock.”

Super Bowl spots are still the hottest ticket in advertising. NBC has sold all the commercial airtime for the Feb. 5 game in Indianapolis and even has a waiting list of advertisers. The average cost for a 30-second spot this year was $3.5 million, with some time slots costing as much as $4 million.

The Material Girl will be taking the stage on football's biggest night. Madonna, who has sold more than 300 million records, will perform at halftime of the Super Bowl in Indianapolis. The NFL and NBC announced Sunday during the Detroit-New Orleans game that the Grammy Award-winning singer will highlight the show at Lucas Oil Stadium on Feb. 5.

NBC got a big Sunday Night Football performance out of the game between the Falcons and Packers, which improved dramatically on last week's football telecast and helped the network dominate the night in all measures.

Take pro football out of the mix, and NBC's ratings problems are glaring.The NFL's Sunday night shootout between the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers was seen by nearly 21.2 million people on NBC, the only prime-time program to top 20 million viewers last week, the Nielsen Co. said.

NBC is poised to claim another Sunday primetime ratings victory with its big "Sunday Night Football" matchup between Indianapolis and New England, but ABC held up well as its core shows, including "Desperate Housewives," came in above average.