For the weekly overall top cable network rankings, click here.
Last week's Bears/Vikings Monday Night Football contest easily led cable viewing for the week with 17.1 million viewers. The Christmas night Cowboys-Cardinals game was a distant second with 7.8 million. Toy Story 2 was third for the week with over 6 million viewers on Sunday night and last Monday's The Closer was fourth for the week with 5.4 million.
Well outside the top 25, Sarah Palin's Alaska averaged 2.49 million viewers, down from the previous week's 2.56 million. Leroy Jethro Gibbs for president with SpongeBob as his running mate (or perhaps the other way around)?
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 26, 2010:
| Rank | Program | Network | Day | Time | Viewers (000) |
| 1 | NFL REGULAR SEASON L-12/20/2010 | ESPN | M...... | 8:30 PM | 17,094 |
| 2 | NFL REGULAR SEASON GAME-12/25/2010 | NFLN | .....S. | 7:41 PM | 7,843 |
| 3 | TOY STORY 2-12/26/2010 | DSNY | ......S | 8:00 PM | 6,045 |
| 4 | CLOSER, THE-12/20/2010 | TNT | M...... | 9:00 PM | 5,400 |
| 5 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT-12/20/2010 | USA | M...... | 10:00 PM | 5,388 |
| 6 | COLL FTBL BOWL GAME L-12/22/2010 | ESPN | ..W.... | 8:00 PM | 5,360 |
| 7 | AMERICAN PICKERS-12/20/2010 | HIST | M...... | 9:00 PM | 5,292 |
| 8 | MONDAY NIGHT COUNTDOWN L-12/20/2010 | ESPN | M...... | 7:00 PM | 5,046 |
| 9 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT-12/20/2010 | USA | M...... | 9:00 PM | 4,938 |
| 10 | NCIS-12/26/2010 | USA | ......S | 8:00 PM | 4,792 |
| 11 | SpongeBob-12/23/2010 | NICK | ...T... | 11:30 AM | 4,617 |
| 12 | SpongeBob-12/24/2010 | NICK | ....F.. | 11:00 AM | 4,485 |
| 13 | SpongeBob-12/23/2010 | NICK | ...T... | 11:00 AM | 4,449 |
| 14 | 24 HOURS OF A XMAS STORY-12/25/2010 | TBSC | .....S. | 10:00 AM | 4,405 |
| 15 | NFL REGULAR SEASON GAME-12/23/2010 | NFLN | ...T... | 8:30 PM | 4,394 |
| 16 | 24 HOURS OF A XMAS STORY-12/24/2010 | TBSC | ....F.. | 8:00 PM | 4,320 |
| 17 | BEAUTY & THE BEAST-12/20/2010 | DSNY | M...... | 8:00 PM | 4,269 |
| 18 | Pawn Stars-12/20/2010 | HIST | M...... | 10:00 PM | 4,269 |
| 19 | NCIS-12/20/2010 | USA | M...... | 8:00 PM | 4,261 |
| 20 | SpongeBob-12/24/2010 | NICK | ....F.. | 10:30 AM | 4,230 |
| 21 | TOY STORY-12/26/2010 | DSNY | ......S | 6:30 PM | 4,120 |
| 22 | SPORTSCENTER: L-12/20/2010 | ESPN | M...... | 11:45 PM | 4,084 |
| 23 | SPONGEBOB-12/24/2010 | NICK | ....F.. | 11:30 AM | 4,067 |
| 24 | NCIS-12/26/2010 | USA | ......S | 10:00 PM | 4,025 |
| 25 | NCIS-12/26/2010 | USA | ......S | 7:00 PM | 4,021 |
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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)
