For the weekly overall top cable network rankings, click here.
As usual, Monday Night Football topped the cable charts. Lebron James' return to Cleveland as a member of the Miami Heat and surrounding coverage grabbed the second and third spots on this week's list.
The Thursday night game on NFL Network (which is available in fewer homes than ESPN) grabbed the fourth spot.
The Walking Dead killed it in its season finale, setting series highs with a 3.0 adults 18-49 rating and 5.97 million viewers.
Sarah Palin's Alaska shed about 700,000 viewers and was well out of the top 25 with 2.78 million viewers.
The Big Time Rush Christmas Special scored 4.96 million viewers on Saturday night on Nick. Hannah Montanna was close behind Sunday night with 4.91 million and Disney's Shake It Up drew 4.26 million.
Though Burn Notice and the season three finale of Sons Of Anarchy round out the bottom of the list below, they ranked much higher with the advertiser coveted adults 18-49 demographic.
All numbers below are live plus same day DVR viewing up to 3am after the initial telecast.
Top 25 Basic cable shows for the week ending December 5, 2010:
| Rank | Program | Network | Day | Time | Viewers (000) |
| 1 | 49ERS/CARDINALS | ESPN | Mon | 08:30P-11:47P | 11,202 |
| 2 | NBA PRE-GAME SHOW | TNT | Thu | 08:00P-08:11P | 7,604 |
| 3 | HEAT/CAVALIERS | TNT | Thu | 08:11P-10:59P | 7,096 |
| 4 | Walking Dead | AMC | Sun | 10:00P-11:00P | 5,972 |
| 5 | 2010 - TEXANS VS. EAGLES | NFLN | Thu | 08:30P-11:35P | 5,406 |
| 6 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,180 |
| 7 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:08P | 5,069 |
| 8 | Big Time Rush XMASSPECIAL | NICK | Sat | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,962 |
| 9 | HANNAH MONTANA FOREVER | DSNY | Sun | 08:00P-08:30P | 4,914 |
| 10 | SHAKE IT UP | DSNY | Sun | 08:30P-09:00P | 4,263 |
| 11 | HOW THE GRINCH STOLE XMAS | FAM | Wed | 08:00P-10:30P | 4,243 |
| 12 | SUITE LIFE ON DECK | DSNY | Fri | 08:00P-08:30P | 4,199 |
| 13 | iCarly | NICK | Sat | 07:30P-08:00P | 4,198 |
| 14 | SONNY WITH A CHANCE | DSNY | Sun | 09:00P-09:30P | 4,086 |
| 15 | SpongeBob THE MOVIE | NICK | Mon | 06:00P-08:00P | 4,079 |
| 16 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:00A-09:30A | 4,040 |
| 17 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:30A-10:00A | 4,036 |
| 18 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,025 |
| 19 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 09:30A-10:00A | 3,995 |
| 20 | PHINEAS AND FERB | DSNY | Fri | 08:30P-09:10P | 3,896 |
| 21 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 09:00A-09:30A | 3,846 |
| 22 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Tue | 06:00P-06:30P | 3,794 |
| 23 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXN | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,714 |
| 24 | Burn Notice | USA | Thu | 10:00P-11:00P | 3,695 |
| 25 | SONS OF ANARCHY | FX | Tue | 10:00P-11:32P | 3,598 |
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We always post whatever specific show data we received directly and see via press release or other trade publications. You can subscribe to our RSS feed and we have created a special category (Overnight Cable TV Show Ratings) to group the data we typically post each weekday from @TravisYanan on Twitter. During the week Travis usually posts selected cable results for each weekday, usually late in the afternoon on the east coast (and Friday night data isn't posted until Monday) and he posts the links to that info on his Twitter account to the info on Marc Berman's PI Forums.
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Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2010 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All ratings above Live+SD (live viewing plus same day DVR viewing)
